UC-NRLF 


B    3 


THIS  SIMIAN 
WORLD 


CLARENCE    DAY 


(f      wnvEBsrrr 

ft  OF 


BY 

CLARENCE  DAY 
#          ' 

THIS    SIMIAN    WORLD 

THE    CROW'S    NEST 
THOUGHTS    WITHOUT    WORDS 

GOD    AND    MY    FATHER 

IN    THE    GREEN     MOUNTAIN     COUNTRY 

SCENES    FROM    THE    MESOZOIC 

LIFE    WITH    FATHER 

AFTER    ALL 
LIFE    WITH    MOTHER 


LIFE    WITH    FATHER, 

made  into  a  play  by 
Howard  Lindsay  and  Russel  Croustf 


THIS  SIMIAN  WORLD 


THIS  SIMIAN 

WORLD 

h 

CLARENCE  DAY 

With  Illustrations  by  the  Author 


New  York  6f  London 

ALFRED-A-KNOPF 

1941 


COPYRIGHT  1920,  BY  CLARENCE  DAY 

All  rights  reserved.  No  part  of  this  book  may  be  repro 
duced  in  any  form  without  permission  in  writing  from 
the  publisher,  except  by  a  reviewer  who  may  quote  brief 
passages  in  a  review  to  be  printed  in  a  magazine  or 
newspaper. 

Published  May  22,  /pao 

Reprinted  Ten  Times 

Twelfth  Printing,  July, 


Manufactured  in  the   United  States  of  America 


"How  I  hate  the  man  who  talks  about  the 
'brute  creation,'  with  an  ugly  emphasis  on 
brute.  ...  As  for  me,  I  am  proud  of  my  close 
kinship  with  other  animals.  I  take  a  jealous 
pride  in  my  Simian  ancestry.  I  like  to  think 
that  I  was  once  a  magnificent  hairy  fellow  liv 
ing  in  the  trees,  and  that  my  frame  has  come 
down  through  geological  time  via  sea  jelly  and 
worms  and  Amphioxus,  Fish,  Dinosaurs,  and 
Apes.  Who  would  exchange  these  for  the  pal 
lid  couple  in  the  Garden  of  Eden?" 

W.  N.  P.  BARBELLION. 


ivi582735 


Iff 


;tr 


THIS  SIMIAN  WORLD 


ONE 

Last  Sunday,  Potter  took  me  out  driving  along 
upper  Broadway,  where  those  long  rows  of  tall 
new  apartment  houses  were  built  a  few  years 
ago.  It  was  a  mild  afternoon  and  great  crowds 
of  people  were  out.  Sunday  afternoon  crowds. 
They  were  not  going  anywhere, — they  were  just 
strolling  up  and  down,  staring  at  each  other,  and 
talking.  There  were  thousands  and  thousands 
of  them. 

"Awful,  aren't  they!"  said  Potter. 

I  didn't  know  what  he  meant.  When  he  added, 
"Why,  these  crowds,"  I  turned  and  asked,  "Why, 
what  about  them?"  I  wasn't  sure  whether  he  had 
an  idea  or  a  headache. 

"Other  creatures  don't  do  it,"  he  replied,  with 
a  discouraged  expression.  "Are  any  other  beings 
-3- 


This  Simian  World 


ever  found  in  such  masses,  but  vermin?  Aimless, 
staring,  vacant-minded,— look  at  them!  I  can  get 
no  sense  whatever  of  individual  worth,  or  of 
value  in  men  as  a  race,  when  I  see  them  like  this. 
It  makes  one  almost  despair  of  civilization." 

I  thought  this  over  for  awhile,  to  get  in  touch 
with  his  attitude.  I  myself  feel  differently  at 
different  times  about  us  human-beings:  some 
times  I  get  pretty  indignant  when  we  are  at 
tacked  (for  there  is  altogether  too  much  abuse 
of  us  by  spectator  philosophers)  and  yet  at  other 
times  I  too  feel  like  a  spectator,  an  alien:  but 
even  then  I  had  never  felt  so  alien  or  despairing 
as  Potter.  I  cast  about  for  the  probable  cause  of 
our  difference.  "Let's  remember,"  I  said,  "it's  a 
simian  civilization." 

Potter  was  staring  disgustedly  at  some  vaude 
ville  sign-boards. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "those  for  example  are  distinc 
tively  simian.  Why  should  you  feel  disappoint 
ment  at  something  inevitable?"  And  I  went  on 
to  argue  that  it  wasn't  as  though  we  were  de 
scended  from  eagles  for  instance,  instead  of 
(broadly  speaking)  from  ape-like  or  monkeyish 
-4- 


This  Simian  World 


beings.  Being  of  simian  stock,  we  had  simian 
traits.  Our  development  naturally  bore  the 
marks  of  our  origin.  If  we  had  inherited  our 
dispositions  from  eagles  we  should  have  loathed 
vaudeville.  But  as  cousins  of  the  Bandarlog,  we 
loved  it.  What  could  you  expect? 


TWO 


If  we  had  been  made  directly  from  clay,  the 
way  it  says  in  the  Bible,  and  had  therefore  in 
herited  no  intermediate  characteristics,—  if  a  god, 
or  some  principle  of  growth,  had  gone  that  way 
to  work  with  us,  he  or  it  might  have  molded  us 
into  much  more  splendid  forms. 

But  considering  our  simian  descent,  it  has 
done  very  well.  The  only  people  who  are  dis 
appointed  in  us  are  those  who  still  believe  that 
clay  story.  Or  who—  unconsciously—  still  let  it 
color  their  thinking. 

There  certainly  seems  to  be  a  power  at  work 
in  the  world,  by  virtue  of  which  every  living 
thing  grows  and  develops.  And  it  tends  toward 
splendor.  Seeds  become  trees,  and  weak  little 
nations  grow  great.  But  the  push  or  the  force 
that  is  doing  this,  the  yeast  as  it  were,  has  to  work 
in  and  on  certain  definite  kinds  of  material.  Be- 
-6- 


This  Simian  World 


cause  this  yeast  is  in  us,  there  may  be  great  and 
undreamedof  possibilities  awaiting  mankind; 
but  because  of  our  line  of  descent  there  are  also 
queer  limitations. 


-7- 


THREE 


In  those  distant  invisible  epochs  before  men 
existed,  before  even  the  proud  missing  link 
strutted  around  through  the  woods  (little  real 
izing  how  we  his  greatgrandsons  would  smile 
wryly  at  him,  much  as  our  own  descendants  may 
shudder  at  us,  ages  hence)  the  various  animals 
were  desperately  competing  for  power.  They 
couldn't  or  didn't  live  as  equals.  Certain  groups 
sought  the  headship. 

Many  strange  forgotten  dynasties  rose,  met 
defiance,  and  fell.  In  the  end  it  was  our  an 
cestors  who  won,  and  became  simian  kings,  and 
-8- 


This  Simian  World 


bequeathed  a  whole  planet  to  us— and  have  never 
been  thanked  for  it.  No  monument  has  been 
raised  to  the  memory  of  those  first  hairy  con 
querors;  yet  had  they  not  fought  well  and  wisely 
in  those  far-off  times,  some  other  race  would 
have  been  masters,  and  kept  us  in  cages,  or  shot 
us  for  sport  in  the  forests  while  they  ruled  the 
world. 

So  Potter  and  I,  developing  this  train  of 
thought,  began  to  imagine  we  had  lived  many 
ages  ago,  and  somehow  or  other  had  alighted 
here  from  some  older  planet.  Familiar  with  the 
ways  of  evolution  elsewhere  in  the  universe,  we 
naturally  should  have  wondered  what  course  it 
would  take  on  this  earth.  "Even  in  this  out-of- 
the-way  corner  of  the  Cosmos,"  we  might  have 
reflected,  "and  on  this  tiny  star,  it  may  be  of 
interest  to  consider  the  trend  of  events."  We 
should  have  tried  to  appraise  the  different  species 
as  they  wandered  around,  each  with  its  own  set 
of  good  and  bad  characteristics.  Which  group, 
we'd  have  wondered,  would  ever  contrive  to 

-9- 


This  Simian  World 


rule  all  the  rest? 

And  how  great  a  development  could  they  at 
tain  to  thereafter? 


— 10  — 


FOUR 


If  we  had  landed  here  after  the  great  saurians 
had  been  swept  from,  the  scene,  we  might  first 
have  considered  the  lemurs  or  apes.  They  had 
hands.  Aesthetically  viewed,  the  poor  simians 
were  simply  grotesque,  but  travelers  who  knew 
other  planets  might  have  known  what  beauty 
may  spring  from  an  uncouth  beginning  in  this 
magic  universe. 

Still—  those  frowzy,  unlovely  hordes  of  apes 
and  monkeys  were  so  completely  lacking  in  signs 
of  kingship;  they  were  so  flighty,  too,  in  their 
xvays,  and  had  so  little  purpose,  and  so  much  love 
for  absurd  and  idle  chatter,  that  they  would 
have  struck  us,  we  thought,  as  unlikely  material. 
Such  traits,  we  should  have  reminded  ourselves, 
persist.  They  are  not  easily  left  behind,  even 
after  long  stages;  and  they  form  a  terrible  ob 
stacle  to  all  high  advancement. 


—  11 


FIVE 


The  bees  or  the  ants  might  have  seemed  to 
us  more  promising.  Their  smallness  of  size  was 
not  necessarily  too  much  of  a  handicap.  They 
could  have  made  poison  their  weapon  for  the 
subjugation  of  rivals.  And  in  these  orderly  insects 
there  was  obviously  a  capacity  for  labor,  and 
co-operative  labor  at  that,  which  could  carry 
them  far.  We  all  know  that  they  have  a  marked 
genius:  great  gifts  of  their  own.  In  a  civilization 
of  super-ants  or  bees,  there  would  have  been  no 
problem  of  the  hungry  unemployed,  no  poverty, 
no  unstable  government,  no  riots,  no  strikes  for 
short  hours,  no  derision  of  eugenics,  no  thieves, 
perhaps  no  crime  at  all. 

Ants  are  good  citizens:  they  place  group  in 
terests  first. 

But  they  carry  it  so  far,  they  have  few  or  no 
political  rights.  An  ant  doesn't  have  the  vote, 
apparently:  he  just  has  his  duties, 
—  12  — 


This  Simian  World 


This  quality  may  have  something  to  do  with 
their  having  group  wars.  The  egotism  of  their 
individual  spirits  is  allowed  scant  expression,  so 
the  egotism  of  the  group  is  extremely  ferocious 
and  active.  Is  this  one  of  the  reasons  why  ants 
fight  so  much?  They  go  in  for  State  Socialism, 
yes,  but  they  are  not  internationalists.  And  ants 
commit  atrocities  in  and  after  their  battles  that 
are— I  wish  I  could  truly  say— inhuman. 

But  conversely,  ants  are  absolutely  unselfish 
within  the  community.  They  are  skilful.  In 
genious.  Their  nests  and  buildings  are  relatively 
larger  than  man's.  The  scientists  speak  of  their 
paved  streets,  vaulted  halls,  their  hundreds  of 
different  domesticated  animals,  their  pluck  and 
intelligence,  their  individual  initiative,  their 
chaste  and  industrious  lives.  Darwin  said  the 
ant's  brain  was  "one  of  the  most  marvelous  atoms 
in  the  world,  perhaps  more  so  than  the  brain 
of  man"— yes,  of  present-day  man,  who  for  thou 
sands  and  thousands  of  years  has  had  so  much 
more  chance  to  develop  his  brain.  ...  A 
thoughtful  observer  would  have  weighed  all 
these  excellent  qualities. 

-13- 


This  Simian  World 


When  we  think  of  these  creatures  as  little  men 
(which  is  all  wrong  of  course)  we  see  they  have 
their  faults.  To  our  eyes  they  seem  too  orderly, 
for  instance.  Repressively  so.  Their  ways  are 
more  fixed  than  those  of  the  old  Egyptians,  and 
their  industry  is  painful  to  think  of,  it's  hyper- 
Chinese.  But  we  must  remember  this  is  a  simian 
comment.  The  instincts  of  the  species  that  you 
and  I  belong  to  are  of  an  opposite  kind;  and  that 
makes  it  hard  for  us  to  judge  ants  fairly. 

But  we  and  the  ants  are  alike  in  one  matter: 
the  strong  love  of  property.  And  instead  of 
merely  struggling  with  Nature  for  it,  they  also 
fight  othei  ants.  The  custom  of  plunuer  seems 
to  be  a  part  of  most  of  their  wars.  This  has  gone 
on  for  ages  among  them,  and  continues  today. 
Raids,  ferocious  combats,  and  loot  are  part  of 
an  ant's  regular  life.  Ant  reformers,  if  there  were 
any,  might  lay  this  to  their  property  sense,  and 
talk  ot  abolishing  property  as  a  cure  for  the  evil. 
But  that  would  not  help  for  long  unless  they 
could  abolish  the  love  of  it. 

Ants  seem  to  care  even  more  for  property  than 
we  do  ourselves.  We  men  are  inclined  to  ease  up 
-14- 


This  Simian  World 


a  little  when  we  have  all  we  need.  But  it  is  not 
so  with  ants:  they  can't  bear  to  stop:  they  keep 
right  on  working.  This  means  that  ants  do  not 
contemplate:  they  heed  nothing  outside  of  their 
own  little  rounds.  It  is  almost  as  though  their 
fondness  for  labor  had  closed  fast  their  minds. 
Conceivably  they  might  have  developed  in 
quiring  minds.  But  this  would  have  run  against 
their  strongest  instincts.  The  ant  is  knowing 
and  wise;  but  he  doesn't  know  enough  to  take  a 
vacation.  The  worshipper  of  energy  is  too  physi 
cally  energetic  to  see  that  he  cannot  explore 
certain  higher  fields  until  he  is  still. 

Even  if  such  a  race  had  somehow  achieved 
self-consiousness  and  reason,  would  they  have 
been  able  therewith  to  rule  their  instincts,  or  to 
stop  work  long  enough  to  examine  themselves, 
or  the  universe,  or  to  dream  of  any  noble  devel 
opment?  Probably  not.  Reason  is  seldom  or 
never  the  ruler:  it  is  the  servant  of  instinct.  It 
would  therefore  have  told  the  ants  that  incessant 
toil  was  useful  and  good. 

"Toil  has  brought  you  up  from  the  ruck  of 
things,"  Reason  would  have  plausibly  said.  "It's 


This  Simian  World 


by  virtue  of  feverish  toil  that  you  have  become 
what  you  are.  Being  endlessly  industrious  is  the 
best  road— for  you— to  the  heights."  And,  self- 
reassured,  they  would  then  have  had  orgies  of 
work;  and  thus,  by  devoted  exertion,  have 
blocked  their  advancement.  Work,  and  order 
and  gain  would  have  withered  their  souls. 


SIX 


Let  us  take  the  great  cats.  They  are  free  from 
this  talent  for  slave-hood.  Stately  beasts  like  the 
lion  have  more  independence  of  mind  than  the 
ants,—  and  a  self-respect,  we  may  note,  unknown 
to  primates.  Or  consider  the  leopards,  with  hearts 
that  no  tyrant  could  master.  What  fearless  and 
resolute  leopard-men  they  could  have  fathered! 
How  magnificently  such  a  civilization  would 
have  made  its  force  tell! 

A  race  of  civilized  beings  descended  from  these 
great  cats  would  have  been  rich  in  hermits  and 
solitary  thinkers.  The  recluse  would  not  have 
been  stigmatized  as  peculiar,  as  he  is  by  us  sim 
ians.  They  would  not  have  been  a  credulous 
people,  or  easily  religious.  False  prophets  and 
swindlers  would  have  found  few  dupes.  And 
what  generals  they  would  have  made  !  what  con 
summate  politicians! 

Don't  imagine  them  as  a  collection  of  tigers 
-17- 


This  Simian  World 


walking  around  on  their  hind-legs.  Thev  would 
have  only  been  like  tigers  in  the  sense  that  we 
men  are  like  monkeys.  Their  development  in 
appearance  and  character  would  have  been  quite 
transforming. 

Instead  of  the  small  flat  head  of  the  tiger,  they 
would  have  had  clear  smooth  brows;  and  those 
who  were  not  bald  would  have  had  neatly  parted 
hair— perhaps  striped. 

Their  mouths  would  have  been  smaller  and 
more  sensitive:  their  faces  most  dignified.  Where 
now  they  express  chiefly  savageness,  they  would 
have  expressed  fire  and  grace. 

They  would  have  been  courteous  and  suave. 
No  vulgar  crowding  would  have  occurred  on  the 
streets  of  their  cities.  No  mobs.  No  ignominious 
subway-jams. 

Imagine  a  cultivated  coterie  of  such  men  and 
women,  at  a  ball,  dancing.  How  few  of  us 
humans  are  graceful.  They  would  have  all  been 
Pavlowas. 

Like  ants  and  bees,  the  cat  race  is  nervous. 
Their  temperaments  are  high-strung.  They 

-18- 


This  Simian  World 


would  never  have  become  as  poised  or  as  placid 
as— say — super-cows.  Yet  they  would  have  had 
less  insanity,  probably,  than  we.  Monkeys'  (and 
elephants')  minds  seem  precariously  balanced, 
unstable.  The  great  cats  are  saner.  They  are 
intense,  they  would  have  needed  sanitariums: 
but  fewer  asylums.  And  their  asylums  would 
have  been  not  for  weak-minded  souls,  but  for 
furies. 

They  would  have  been  strong  at  slander.  They 
would  have  been  far  more  violent  than  we,  in 
their  hates,  and  they  would  have  had  fewer 
friendships.  Yet  they  might  not  have  been  any 
poorer  in  real  friendships  than  we.  The  real 
friendships  among  men  are  so  rare  that  when 
they  occur  they  are  famous.  Friends  as  loyal  as 
Damon  and  Pythias  were,  are  exceptions.  Good 
fellowship  is  common,  but  unchanging  affection 
is  not.  We  like  those  who  like  us,  as  a  rule,  and 
dislike  those  who  don't.  Most  of  our  ties  have 
no  better  footing  than  that;  and  those  who  have 
many  such  ties  are  called  warm-hearted. 

The  super-cat-men  would  have  rated  cleaixli- 

-19- 


This  Simian  World 


ness  higher.  Some  of  us  primates  have  learned 
to  keep  ourselves  clean,  but  it's  no  large  pro 
portion;  and  even  the  cleanest  of  us  see  no 
grandeur  in  soap-manufacturing,  and  we  don't 
look  to  manicures  and  plumbers  for  social  pres 
tige.  A  feline  race  would  have  honored  such 
occupations.  J.  de  Courcy  Tiger  would  have 

felt  that  nothing  but 
making  soap,  or  being 
a  plumber,  was  com 
patible  with  a  high 
social  position;  and  the 
rich  Vera  Pantherbilt 
would  have  deigned  to 
dine  only  with  mani 
cures. 

None  but  the  lowest 
dregs  of  such  a   race 
would  have  been  law 
yers     spending     their 
span    of   life    on    this 
mysterious  earth  study 
ing  the  long  dusty  records  of  dead  and  gone 
quarrels.  We  simians  naturally  admire  a  pro- 
—  20  — 


This  Simian  World 


fession  full  of  wrangle  and  chatter.  But  that  is 
a  monkeyish  way  of  deciding  disputes,  not  a 
feline. 

We  fight  best  in  armies,  gregariously,  where 
the  risk  is  reduced;  but  we  disapprove  usually 
of  murderers,  and  of  almost  all  private  combat. 
With  the  great  cats,  it  would  have  been  just  the 
other  way  round.  (Lions  and  leopards  fight 
each  other  singly,  not  in  bands,  as  do  monkeys.) 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  few  of  us  delight  in  really 
serious  fighting.  We  do  love  to  bicker;  and  we 
box  and  knock  each  other  around,  to  exhibit 
our  strength;  but  few  normal  simians  are  keen 
about  bloodshed  and  killing;  we  do  it  in  war 
only  because  of  patriotism,  revenge,  duty,  glory. 
A  feline  civilization  would  have  cared  nothing 
for  duty  or  glory,  but  they  would  have  taken  a 
far  higher  pleasure  in  gore.  If  a  planet  of  super- 
cat-men  could  look  down  upon  ours,  they  would 
not  know  which  to  think  was  the  most  amazing: 
the  way  we  tamely  live,  five  million  or  so  in  a 
city,  with  only  a  few  police  to  keep  us  quiet, 
while  we  commit  only  one  or  two  murders  a 
day,  and  hardly  have  a  respectable  number  of 


This  Simian  World 


brawls;  or  the  way  great  armies  of  us  are  trained 
to  fight,— not  liking  it  much,  and  yet  doing  more 
killing  in  war-time  and  shedding  more  blood 
than  even  the  fiercest  lion  on  his  crudest  days. 
Which  would  perplex  a  gentlemanly  super-cat 
spectator  the  more,  our  habits  of  wholesale 
slaughter  in  the  field,  or  our  spiritless  making  a 
fetish  of  "order/'  at  home? 

It  is  fair  to  judge  peoples  by  the  rights  they 
will  sacrifice  most  for.  Super-cat-men  would  have 
been  outraged,  had  their  right  of  personal  com 
bat  been  questioned.  The  simian  submits  with 
odd  readiness  to  the  loss  of  this  privilege.  What 
outrages  him  is  to  make  him  stop  wagging  his 
tongue.  He  becomes  most  excited  and  passionate 
about  the  right  of  free  speech,  even  going  so  far 
in  his  emotion  as  to  declare  it  is  sacred. 

He  looks  upon  other  creatures  pityingly  be 
cause  they  are  dumb.  If  one  of  his  own  children 
is  born  dumb,  he  counts  it  a  tragedy.  Even  that 
mere  hesitation  in  speech,  known  as  stammering, 
he  deems  a  misfortune. 

So  precious  to  a  simian  is  the  privilege  of 

—  22  — 


This  Simian  World 


making  sounds  with  his  tongue,  that  when  he 
wishes  to  punish  severely  those  men  he  calls 
criminals,  he  forbids  them  to  chatter,  and  forces 
them  by  threats  to  be  silent.  It  is  felt  that  this 
punishment  is  entirely  too  cruel  however,  and 
that  even  the  worst  offenders  should  be  allowed 
to  talk  part  of  each  day. 

Whatever  a  simian  does,  there  must  always 
be  some  talking  about  it.  He  can't  even  make 
peace  without  a  kind  of  chatter  called  a  peace 
conference.  Super-cats  would  not  have  had  to 
"make"  peace:  they  would  have  just  walked  off 
and  stopped  fighting. 

In  a  world  of  super-cat-men,  I  suppose  there 
would  have  been  fewer  sailors;  and  people  would 
have  cared  less  for  seaside  resorts,  or  for  swim 
ming.  Cats  hate  getting  wet,  so  men  descended 
trom  them  might  have  hated  it.  They  would 
ha\e  felt  that  even  going  in  wading  was  a  sign 
of  great  hardihood,  and  only  the  most  daring 
young  fellows,  showing  off,  would  have  done  it. 

Among  them  there  would  have  been  no  anti- 
vivisection  societies: 

-23-- 


This  Simian  World 


No  Young  Cats  Christian  Associations  or  Red 
Cross  work: 

No  vegetarians: 

No  early  closing  laws: 

Much  more  hunting  and  trapping: 

No  riding  to  hounds;  that's  pure  simian.  Just 
think  how  it  would  have  entranced  the  old-time 
monkeys  to  foresee  such  a  game!  A  game  where 
they'd  all  prance  off  on  captured  horses,  tearing 
pell-mell  through  the  woods  in  gay  red  coats, 
attended  by  yelping  packs  of  servant-dogs.  It  is 
excellent  sport— but  how  cats  would  scorn  to 
hunt  in  that  way! 

They  would  not  have  knighted  explorers— 
they  would  have  all  been  explorers. 

Imagine  that  you  are  strolling  through  a  super- 
cat  city  at  night.  Over  yonder  is  the  business 
quarter,  its  evening  shops  blazing  with  jewels. 
The  great  stock-yards  lie  to  the  east  where  you 
hear  those  sad  sounds:  that  low  mooing  as  of 
innumerable  herds,  waiting  slaughter.  Beyond 
lie  the  silent  aquariums  and  the  crates  of  fresh 
mice.  (They  raise  mice  instead  of  hens  in  the 
-24- 


This  Simian  World 


country,  in  Super-cat  Land.)  To  the  west  is  a 
beautiful  but  weirdly  bacchanalian  park,  with 
long  groves  of  catnip,  where  young  super-cats 
have  their  fling,  and  where  a  few  crazed  catnip 
addicts  live  on  till  they  die,  unable  to  break  off 
their  strangely  undignified  orgies.  And  here 
where  you  stand  is  the  sumptuous  residence 
district.  Houses  with  spacious  grounds  every 
where:  no  densely-packed  buildings.  The  streets 
have  been  swept  up— 
or  lapped  up— until 
they  are  spotless.  Not 
a  scrap  of  paper  is  ly 
ing  around  anywhere: 
no  rubbish,  no  dust. 
Few  of  the  pavements 
are  left  bare,  as  ours 
are,  and  those  few 
are  polished:  the  rest 
have  deep  soft  velvet 
carpets.  No  footfalls 
are  heard. 

There  are  no  lights  in  these  streets,  though 
these  people  are  abroad  much  at  night.  All  you 
-25- 


This  Simian  World 


see  are  stars  overhead  and  the  glowing  eyes  of 
cat  ladies,  of  lithe  silken  ladies  who  pass  you, 
or  of  stiff-whiskered  men.  Beware  of  those  men 
and  the  gleam  of  their  split-pupiled  stare.  They 
are  haughty,  punctilious,  inflammable:  self- 
absorbed  too,  however.  They  will  probably  not 
even  notice  you;  but  if  they  do,  you  are  lost. 
They  take  offense  in  a  flash,  abhor  strangers, 
despise  hospitality,  and  would  think  nothing  of 
killing  you  or  me  on  their  way  home  to  dinner. 
Follow  one  of  them.  Enter  this  house.  Ah 
what  splendor!  No  servants,  though  a  few  abject 
monkeys  wait  at  the  back-doors,  and  submissively 
run  little  errands.  But  of  course  they  are  never 
let  inside:  they  would  seem  out  of  place.  Gor 
geous  couches,  rich  colors,  silken  walls,  an 
oriental  magnificence.  In  here  is  the  ballroom. 
But  wait:  what  is  this  in  the  corner?  A  large 
triumphal  statue— of  a  cat  overcoming  a  dog. 
And  look  at  this  dining-room,  its  exquisite  ap 
pointments,  its  daintiness:  faucets  for  hot  and 
cold  milk  in  the  pantry,  and  a  gold  bowl  of 
cream. 

-26- 


This  Simian  World 


Some  one  is  entering.  Hush!  If  I  could  but 
describe  her!  Languorous,  slender  and  pas 
sionate.  Sleepy  eyes  that  see  everything.  An  in 
dolent  purposeful  step.  An  unimaginable  grace. 
If  you  were  her  lover,  my  boy,  you  would  learn 
how  fierce  love  can  be,  how  capricious  and  sud 
den,  how  hostile,  how  ecstatic,  how  violent! 

Think  what  the  state  of  the  arts  would  have 
been  in  such  cities. 

They  would  have  had  few  comedies  on  their 
stage;  no  farces.  Cats  care  little  for  fun.  In  the 
circus,  superlative  acrobats.  No  clowns. 

In  drama  and  sing 
ing  they  would  have 
surpassed  us  proba 
bly.  Even  in  the  stage 
of  arrested  develop 
ment  as  mere  animals, 
in  which  we  see  cats, 
they  wail  with  a  pas 
sionate  intensity  at 
night  in  our  yards.  Imagine  how  a  Caruso 
-27- 


This  Simian  World 


descended  from  such  beings  would  sing. 

In  literature  they  would  not  have  begged  for 
happy  endings. 

They  would  have  been  personally  more  self- 
assured  than  we,  far  freer  of  cheap  imitativeness 
of  each  other  in  marfhers  and  art,  and  hence 
more  original  in  art;  more  clearly  aware  of  what 
they  really  desired,  not  cringingly  watchful  of 
what  was  expected  of  them;  less  widely  observ 
ant  perhaps,  more  deeply  thoughtful. 

Their  artists  would  have  produced  less  how 
ever,  even  though  they  felt  more.  A  super-cat 
artist  would  have  valued  the  pictures  he  drew 
for  their  effects  on  himself;  he  wouldn't  have 
cared  a  rap  whether  anyone  else  saw  them  or 
not.  He  would  not  have  bothered,  usually,  to 
give  any  form  to  his  conceptions.  Simply  to  have 
had  the  sensation  would  have  for  him  been 
enough.  But  since  simians  love  to  be  noticed,  it 
does  not  content  them  to  have  a  conception; 
they  must  wrestle  with  it  until  it  takes  a  form 
in  which  others  can  see  it.  They  doom  the  artistic 
impulse  to  toil  with  its  nose  to  the  grindstone, 
until  their  idea  is  expressed  in  a  book  or  a  statue. 
-28- 


This  Simian  World 


Are  they  right?  I  have  doubts.  The  artistic  im 
pulse  seems  not  to  wish  to  produce  finished  work. 
It  certainly  deserts  us  half-way,  after  the  idea  is 
born;  and  if  we  go  on,  art  is  labor.  With  the 
cats,  art  is  joy. 

But  the  dominant  characteristic  of  this  fine 
race  is  cunning.  And  hence  I  think  it  would  have 
been  through  their  craftiness,  chiefly,  that  they 
would  have  felt  the  impulse  to  study,  and  the 
wish  to  advance.  Craft  is  a  cat's  delight:  craft 
they  never  can  have  too  much  of.  So  it  would 
have  been  from  one  triumph  of  cunning  to  an 
other  that  they  would  have  marched.  That 
would  have  been  the  greatest  driving  force  of 
their  civilization. 

This  would  have  meant  great  progress  in  in- 
vention  and  science— or  in  some  fields  of  science, 
the  economic  for  instance.  But  it  would  have 
retarded  them  in  others.  Craft  studies  the  world 
calculatingly,  from  without,  instead  of  under- 
standingly  from  within.  Especially  would  it  have 
cheapened  the  feline  philosophies;  for  not 
simply  how  to  know  but  how  to  circumvent  the 
-29- 


This  Simian  World 


universe  would  have  been  their  desire.  Man 
kind's  curiosity  is  disinterested;  it  seems  purer 
by  contrast.  That  is  to  say,  made  as  we  are,  it 
seems  purer  to  us.  What  we  call  disinterested, 
however,  super-cats  might  call  aimless.  (Aim- 
lessness  is  one  of  the  regular  simian  traits.) 

I  don't  mean  to  be  prejudiced  in  favor  of  the 
simian  side.  Curiosity  may  be  as  debasing,  I 
grant  you,  as  craft.  And  craft  might  turn  into 
artifices  of  a  kind  which  would  be  noble  and  fine. 
Just  as  the  ignorant  and  fitful  curiosity  of  some 
little  monkey  is  hardly  to  be  compared  to  the 
astronomer's  magnificent  search,  so  the  craft 
and  cunning  we  see  in  our  pussies  would  bear 
small  relation  to  the  high-minded  planning  of 
some  ruler  of  the  race  we  are  imagining. 

And  yet— craft  is  self-defeating  in  the  end. 
Transmute  it  into  its  finest  possible  form,  let 
it  be  as  subtle  and  civilized  as  you  please,  as 
yearning  and  noble,  as  enlightened,  it  still  sets 
itself  over  against  the  wholeness  of  things;  its 
role  is  that  of  the  part  at  war  with  the  whole. 
Milton's  Lucifer  had  the  mind  of  a  fine  super- 
cat. 


This  Simian  World 


That  craft  may  defeat  itself  in  the  end,  how 
ever,  is  not  the  real  point.  That  doesn't  explain 
why  the  lions  aren't  ruling  the  planet.  The 
trouble  is,  it  would  defeat  itself  in  the  begin 
ning.  It  would  have  too  bitterly  stressed  the 
struggle  for  existence.  Conflict  and  struggle  make 
civilizations  virile,  but  they  do  not  by  themselves 
make  civilizations.  Mutual  aid  and  support  are 
needed  for  that.  There  the  felines  are  lacking. 
They  do  not  co-operate  well;  they  have  small 
group-devotion.  Their  lordliness,  their  strong 
self-regard,  and  their  coolness  of  heart,  have 
somehow  thwarted  the  chance  of  their  racial 
progress. 


SE  VEX 


There  are  many  other  beasts  that  one  might  once 
have  thought  had  a  chance. 

Some,  like  horses  and  deer,  were  not  bold 
enough;  or  were  stupid,  like  buffaloes. 

Some  had  over-trustful  characters,  like  the 
seals;  or  exploitable  characters,  like  cows,  and 
chickens,  and  sheep.  Such  creatures  sentence 
themselves  to  be  captives,  by  their  lack  of 
ambition. 

Dogs?  They  have  more  spirit.  But  they  have 
lost  their  chance  of  kingship  through  worship 
ping  us.  The  dog's  finer  qualities  can't  be 
praised  too  warmly;  there  is  a  purity  about  his 
devotion  which  makes  mere  men  feel  speechless: 
but  with  all  love  for  dogs,  one  must  grant  they 
are  vassals,  not  rulers.  They  are  too  parasitic— 
the  one  willing  servant  class  of  the  world.  And 
we  have  betrayed  them  by  making  under-simians 
of  them.  We  have  taught  them  some  of  our  own 
-32- 


This  Simian  World 


ways  of  behaving,  and  frowned  upon  theirs.  Lov 
ing  us,  they  let  us  stop  their  developing  in  tune 
with  their  natures;  and  they've  patiently  tried 
ever  since  to  adopt  ways  of  ours.  They  have  done 
it,  too;  but  of  course  they  can't  get  far:  it's  not 
their  own  road.  Dogs  have  more  love  than  in 
tegrity.  They've  been  true  to  us,  yes,  but  they 
haven't  been  true  to  themselves. 

Pigs?  The  pig  is  remarkably  intelligent  and 
brave,— but  he's  gross;  and  grossness  delays  one's 
achievement,  it  takes  so  much  time.  The  snake 
too,  though  wise,  has  a  way  of  eating  himself 
into  stupors.  If  super-snake-men  had  had  ban 
quets  they  would  have  been  too  vast  to  describe. 
Each  little  snake  family  could  have  eaten  a  herd 
of  cattle  at  Christmas. 

Goats,  then?  Bears  or  turtles?  Wolves,  whales, 
crows?  Each  had  brains  and  pride,  and  would 
have  been  glad  to  rule  the  world  if  they  could; 
but  each  had  their  defects,  and  their  weaknesses 
for  such  a  position. 

The  elephant?  Ah!  Evolution  has  had  its 
tragedies,  hasn't  it,  as  well  as  its  triumphs;  and 
well  should  the  elephant  know  it.  He  had  the 

-33- 


This  Simian  World 


best  chance  of  all.  Wiser  even  than  the  lion,  or 
the  wisest  of  apes,  his  wisdom  furthermore  was 
benign  where  theirs  was  sinister.  Consider  his 
dignity,  his  poise  and  skill.  He  was  plastic,  too. 
He  had  learned  to  eat  many  foods  and  endure 
many  climates.  Once,  some  say,  this  race  ex 
plored  the  globe.  Their  bones  are  found  every 
where,  in  South  America  even;  so  the  elephants' 
Columbus  may  have  found  some  road  here  be 
fore  ours.  They  are  cosmopolitans,  these  suave 
and  well-bred  beings.  They  have  rich  emotional 
natures,  long  memories,  loyalty;  they  are  steady 
and  sure;  and  not  narrow,  not  self-absorbed,  for 
they  seem  interested  in  everything.  What  was  it 
then,  that  put  them  out  of  the  race? 

Could  it  have  been  a  quite  natural  belief  that 
they  had  already  won? 

And  when  they  saw  that  they  hadn't,  and 
that  the  monkey-men  were  getting  ahead,  were 
they  too  great-minded  and  decent  to  exterminate 
their  puny  rivals? 

It  may  have  been  their  tolerance  and  patience 
that  betrayed  them.  They  wait  too  long  before 
they  resent  an  imposition  or  insult.  Just  as  ants 
-34- 


This  Simian  World 


are  too  energetic  and  cats  too  shrewd  for  their 
own  highest  good,  so  the  elephants  suffer  from 
too  much  patience.  Their  exhibitions  of  it  may 
seem  superb,— such  power  and  such  restraint, 
combined,  are  noble,— but  a  quality  carried  to 
excess  defeats  itself.  Kings  who  won't  lift  their 
scepters  must  yield  in  the  end;  and,  the  worst 
of  it  is,  to  upstarts  who  snatch  at  their  crowns. 

I  fancy  the  elephants  would  have  been  gentler 
masters  than  we:  more  live-and-let-live  in  allow 
ing  other  species  to  stay  here.  Our  way  is  to  kill 
good  and  bad,  male  and  female  and  babies,  till 
the  few  last  survivors  lie  hidden  away  from  our 
guns.  All  s^pecies  must  surrender  unconditionally 
—those  are  our  terms — and  come  and  live  in 
barns  alongside  us;  or  on  us,  as  parasites.  The 
creatures  that  want  to  live  a  life  of  their  own, 
we  call  wild.  If  wild,  then  no  matter  how  harm 
less  we  treat  them  as  outlaws,  and  those  of  us 
who  are  specially  well  brought  up  shoot  them 
for  fun.  Some  might  be  our  friends.  We  don't 
wish  it.  We  keep  them  all  terrorized.  When  one 
of  us  conquering  monkey-men  enters  the  woods, 
—  35- 


This  Simian  World 


most  animals  that  scent  him  slink  away,  or  race 
off  in  a  panic.  It  is  not  that  we  have  planned 
this  deliberately:  but  they  know  what  we're  like. 
Race  by  race  they  have  been  slaughtered.  Soon 
all  will  be  gone.  We  give  neither  freedom  nor 
life-room  to  those  we  defeat. 

If  we  had  been  as  strong  as  the  elephants,  we 
might  have  been  kinder.  When  great  power 
comes  naturally  to  people,  it  is  used  more  ur 
banely.  We  use  it  as  parvenus  do,  because  that's 
Vhat  we  are.  The  elephant,  being  born  to  it,  is 
easy-going,  confident,  tolerant.  He  would  have 
been  a  more  humane  king. 

A  race  descended  from  elephants  would  have 
had  to  build  on  a  large  scale.  Imagine  a  crowd 
of  huge,  wrinkled,  slow-moving  elephant-men 
getting  into  a  Vast  elephant  omnibus. 

And  would  they  have  ever  tried  airships? 

The  elephant  is  stupid  when  it  comes  to  learn 
ing  how  to  use  tools.  So  are  all  other  species 
except  our  own.  Isn't  it  strange?  A  tool,  in  the 
most  primitive  sense,  is  any  object,  lying  around, 
that  can  obviously  be  used  as  an  instrument  for 

-36- 


This  Simian  World 


this  or  that  purpose.  Many  creatures  use  objects 
as  materials,,  as  birds  use  twigs  for  nests.  But  the 
step  that  no  animal  takes  is  learning  freely  to  use 
things  as  instruments.  When  an  elephant  plucks 
off  a  branch  and  swishes  his  flanks,  and  thus 
keeps  away  insects,  he  is  using  a  tool.  But  he 
does  it  only  by  a  vague  and  haphazard  associa 
tion  of  ideas.  If  he  once  became  a  conscious  user 
of  tools  he  would  of  course  go  much  further. 

We  ourselves,  who  are  so  good  at  it  now, 
were  slow  enough  in  beginning.  Think  of  the 
long  epochs  that  passed  before  it  entered  our 
heads. 

And  all  that  while  the  contest  for  leadership 
blindly  went  on,  without  any  species  making 
use  of  this  obvious  aid.  The  lesson  to  be  learned 
was  simple:  the  reward  was  the  rule  of  a  planet. 
Yet  only  one  species,  our  own,  has  ever  had  that 
much  brains. 

It  makes  you  wonder  what  other  obvious  les 
sons  may  still  be  unlearned. 

It  is  not  necessarily  stupid  however,  to  fail 
to  use  tools.  To  use  tools  involves  using  reason, 

-37- 


This  Simian  World 


"^"d  of  «tirfcmg  to  instinct.  Now,  sticking  to 
instinct  has  its  disadvantages,  but  so  has  using 
reason.  Whichever  faculty  you  use,  the  other 
atrophies,  and  partly  deserts  you.  We  are  trying 
to  use  both.  But  we  still  don't  know  which  has 
the  more  value. 

A  sudden  vision  comes  to  me  of  one  of  the 
first  far-away  ape-men  who  tried  to  use  reason 
iMtMd  of  instinct  as  a  guide  for  his  conduct. 
I  imagine  him,  perched  in  his  tree,  torn  between 
those  two  voices,  wailing  loudly  at  night  by  a 
river,  in  his  puzzled  distress. 

My  poor  far-off  brother! 

/a 


EIG  H  T 


We  have  been  considering  which  species  was 
on  the  whole  most  finely  equipped  to  be  rulers, 
and  thereafter  achieve  a  high  civilization;  but 
that  wasn't  the  problem.  The  real  problem 
was  which  would  do  it:—  a  different  matter. 

To  do  it  there  was  need  of  a  species  that  had 
at  least  these  two  qualities:  some  quenchless 
desire,  to  urge  them  on  and  on;  and  also  adapt 
ability  of  a  thousand  kinds  to  their  environment. 

The  rhinoceros  cares  little  for  adaptability. 
He  slogs  through  the  world.  But  we!  we  are 
experts.  Adaptability  is  what  we  depend  on.  We 
talk  of  our  mastery7  of  nature,  which  sounds  very 
grand;  but  the  fact  is  we  respectfully  adapt  our 
selves  first,  to  her  ways.  "We  attain  no  power 
over  nature  till  we  learn  natural  laws,  and  our 
lordship  depends  on  the  adroitness  with  which 
we  learn  and  conform." 

Adroitness  however  is  merely  an  ability  to 
win;  back  of  it  there  must  be  some  spur  to  make 
-39- 


This  Simian  World 


us  use  our  adroitness.  Why  don't  we  all  die  or 
give  up  when  we're  sick  of  the  world?  Because 
the  love  of  life  is  reenforced,  in  most  energized 
beings,  by  some  longing  that  pushes  them  for 
ward,  in  defeat  and  in  darkness.  All  creatures 
wish  to  live,  and  to  perpetuate  their  species,  of 
course;  but  those  two  wishes  alone  evidently  do 
not  carry  any  race  far.  In  addition  to  these,  a 
race,  to  be  great,  needs  some  hunger,  some  itch, 
to  spur  it  up  the  hard  path  we  lately  have  learned 
to  call  evolution.  The  love  of  toil  in  the  ants, 
and  of  craft  in  cats,  are  examples  (imaginary  or 
not).  What  other  such  lust  could  exert  great 
driving  force? 

With  us  is  it  curiosity?  endless  interest  in  one's 
environment? 

Many  animals  have  some  curiosity,  but 
"some"  is  not  enough;  and  in  but  few  is  it  one 
of  the  master  passions.  By  a  master  passion,  I 
mean  a  passion  that  is  really  your  master:  some 
appetite  which  habitually,  day  in,  day  out,  makes 
its  subjects  forget  fatigue  or  danger,  and  sacrifice 
their  ease  to  its  gratification.  That  is  the  kind 
of  hold  that  curiosity  has  on  the  nonkeys. 
-40- 


NINE 


Imagine  a  prehistoric  prophet  observing  these 
beings,  and  forecasting  what  kind  of  civilizations 
their  descendants  would  build.  Anyone  could 
have  foreseen  certain  parts  of  the  simians'  his 
tory:  could  have  guessed  that  their  curiosity 
would  unlock  for  them,  one  by  one,  nature's 
doors,  and—  idly—  bestow  on  them  stray  bits  of 
valuable  knowledge:  could  have  pictured  them 
spreading  inquiringly  all  over  the  globe,  stum 
bling  on  their  inventions—  and  idly  passing  on 
and  forgetting  them. 

To  have  to  learn  the  same  thing  over  and  over 
again  wastes  the  time  of  a  race.  But  this  is  con 
tinually  necessary,  with  simians,  because  of  their 
disorder.  "Disorder,"  a  prophet  would  have 
sighed:  "that  is  one  of  their  handicaps;  one  that 
they  will  never  get  rid  of,  whatever  it  costs. 
Having  so  much  curiosity  makes  a  race  scatter* 
brained. 

-41- 


This  Simian  World 


"Yes,"  he  would  have  dismally  continued,  "it 
will  be  a  queer  mixture:  these  simians  will  attain 
to  vast  stores  of  knowledge,  in  time,  that  is  plain. 
But  after  spending  centuries  groping  to  discover 
some  art,  in  after-centuries  they  will  now  and 
then  find  it's  forgotten.  How  incredible  it  would 
seem  on  other  planets  to  hear  of  lost  arts. 

"There  is  a  strong  streak  of  triviality  in  them, 
which  you  don't  see  in  cats.  They  won't  have  fine 
enough  characters  to  concentrate  on  the  things 
of  most  weight.  They  will  talk  and  think  far 
more  of  trifles  than  of  what  is  important.  Even 
when  they  are  reasonably  civilized,  this  will  be 
so.  Great  discoveries  sometimes  will  fail  to  be 
heard  of,  because  too  much  else  is;  and  many 
will  thus  disappear,  and  these  men  will  not 
know  it."  1 

Let  me  interrupt  this  lament  to  say  a  word 
for  myself  and  my  ancestors.  It  is  easy  to  blame 
us  as  undiscriminating,  but  we  are  at  least  full 
of  zest.  And  it's  well  to  be  interested,  eagerly 

1  We  did  rescue  Mendel's  from  the  tlust  heap;  but  perhaps 
it  was  an  exception. 

-42- 


This  Simian  World 


and  intensely,  in  so  many  things,  because  there 
is  often  no  knowing  which  may  turn  out  im 
portant.  We  don't  go  around  being  interested  on 
purpose,  hoping  to  profit  by  it,  but  a  profit  may 
come.  And  anyway  it  is  generous  of  us  not  to 
be  too  self-absorbed.  Other  creatures  go  to  the 
other  extreme  to  an  amazing  extent.  They  are 
ridiculously  oblivious  to  what  is  going  on.  The 
smallest  ant  in  the  garden  will  ignore  the  largest 
woman  who  visits  it.  She  is  a  huge  and  most 
dangerous  super-mammoth  in  relation  to  him, 
and  her  tread  shakes  the  earth;  but  he  has  no 
time  to  be  bothered,  investigating  such-like 
phenomena.  He  won't  even  get  out  of  her  way. 
He  has  his  work  to  do,  hang  it. 

Birds  and  squirrels  have  less  of  this  glorious 
independence  of  spirit.  They  watch  you  closely 
—if  you  move  around.  But  not  if  you  keep  still. 
In  other  words,  they  pay  no  more  attention  than 
they  can  help,  even  to  mammoths. 

We  of  course  observe  everything,  or  try  to. 

We  could  spend  our  lives  looking  on.  Consider 

our  museums  for  instance:  they  are  a  sign  of  our 

breed.  It  makes  us  smile  to  see  birds,  like  the 

-43- 


This  Simian  World 


magpie,  with  a  mania  for  this  collecting— but 
only  monkeyish  beings  could  reverence  museums 
as  we  do,  and  pile  such  heterogeneous  trifles  and 
quantities  in  them.  Old  furniture,  egg-shells, 
watches,  bits  of  stone.  .  .  .  And  next  door,  a 
"menagerie."  Though  our  victory  over  all  other 
animals  is  now  aeons  old,  we  still  bring  home 
captives  and  exhibit  them  caged  in  our  cities. 
And  when  a  species  dies  out— or  is  crowded  (by 
us)  off  the  planet— we  even  collect  the  bones  of 
the  vanquished  and  show  them  like  trophies. 

Curiosity  is  a  valuable  trait.  It  will  make  the 
simians  learn  many  things.  But  the  curiosity  of 
a  simian  is  as  excessive  as  the  toil  of  an  ant.  Each 
simian  will  wish  to  know  more  than  his  head 
can  hold,  let  alone  ever  deal  with;  and  those 
whose  minds  are  active  will  wish  to  know  every 
thing  going.  It  would  stretch  a  god's  skull  to 
accomplish  such  an  ambition,  yet  simians  won't 
like  to  think  it's  beyond  their  powers.  Even 
small  tradesmen  and  clerks,  no  matter  how 
thrifty,  will  be  eager  to  buy  costly  encyclopedias, 
-44- 


This  Simian  World 


or  books  of  all  knowledge.  Almost  every  simian 
family,  even  the  dullest,  will  think  it  is  due  to 
themselves  to  keep  all  knowledge  handy. 

Their  idea  of  a  liberal  education  will  there 
fore  be  a  great  hodge-podge;  and  he  who  narrows 
his  field  and  digs  deep  will  be  viewed  as  an 
alien.  If  more  than  one  man  in  a  hundred  should 
thus  dare  to  concentrate,  the  ruinous  effects  of 
being  a  specialist  will  be  sadly  discussed.  It  may 
make  a  man  exceptionally  useful,  they  will  have 
to  admit;  but  still  they  will  feel  badly,  and  fear 
that  civilization  will  suffer. 

One  of  .their  curious  educational  ideas— but 
a  natural  one— will  be  shown  in  the  efforts  they 
will  make  to  learn  more  than  one  "language." 
They  will  set  their  young  to  spending  a  decade 
or  more  of  their  lives  in  studying  duplicate 
systems— whole  systems— of  chatter.  Those  who 
thus  learn  several  different  ways  to  say  the  same 
things,  will  command  much  respect,  and  those 
who  learn  many  will  be  looked  on  with  awe— by- 
true  simians.  And  persons  without  this  accom- 
-45- 


This  Simian  World 


plishment  will  be  looked  down  on  a  little,  and 
will  actually  feel  quite  apologetic  about  it  them 
selves. 

Consider  how  enormously  complicated  a  com 
plete  language  must  be,  with  its  long  and  arbi 
trary  vocabulary,  its  intricate  system  of  sounds; 
the  many  forms  that  single  words  may  take, 
especially  if  they  are  verbs;  the  rules  of  gram 
mar,  the  sentence  structure,  the  idioms,  slang 
and  inflections.  Heavens,  what  a  genius  for 
tongues  these  simians  have! *  Where  another 
race,  after  the  most  frightful  discord  and  pains, 
might  have  slowly  constructed  one  language  be 
fore  this  earth  grew  cold,  this  race  will  create 
literally  hundreds,  each  complete  in  itself,  and 
many  of  them  with  quaint  little  systems  of  writ 
ing  attached.  And  the  owners  of  this  linguistic 
gift  are  so  humble  about  it,  they  will  marvel  at 
bees,  for  their  hives,  and  at  beavers'  mere  dams. 

To  return,  however,  to  their  fear  of  being  too 

1  You  remember  what  Kipling  says  in  the  Jungle  Books,  about 
how  disgusted  the  quiet  animals  were  with  the  Bandarlog, 
because  they  were  eternally  chattering,  would  never  keep  still. 
Well,  this  is  the  good  side  of  it. 

-46- 


This  Simian  World 


narrow,  in  going  to  the  other  extreme  they  will 
run  to  incredible  lengths.  Every  civilized  simian, 
every  day  of  his  life,  in  addition  to  whatever 
older  facts  he  has  picked  up,  will  wish  to  know 
all  the  news  of  all  the  world.  If  he  felt  any  true 
concern  to  know  it,  this  would  be  rather  fine  of 
him:  it  would  imply  such  a  close  solidarity  on  the 
part  of  this  genus.  (Such  a  close  solidarity  would 
seem  crushing,  to  others;  but  that  is  another 
matter.)  It  won't  be  true  concern,  however,  it 
will  be  merely  a  blind  inherited  instinct.  He'll 
forget  what  he's  read,  the  very  next  hour,  or 
moment.  Yet  there  he  will  faithfully  sit,  the 
ridiculous  creature,  reading  of  bombs  in  Spain 
or  floods  in  Thibet,  and  especially  insisting  on 
all  the  news  he  can  get  of  the  kind  our  race 
loved  when  they  scampered  and  fought  in  the 
forest,  news  that  will  stir  his  most  primitive 
simian  feelings,— wars,  accidents,  love  affairs, 
and  family  quarrels. 

To  feed  himself  with  this  largely  purposeless 
provender,  he  will  pay  thousands  of  simians  to 
be  reporters  of  such  events  day  and  night;  and 
they  will  report  them  on  such  a  voluminous 

-47- 


This  Simian  World 


scale  as  to  smother  or  obscure  more  significant 
news  altogether.  Great  printed  sheets  will  be 
read  by  every  one  every  day;  and  even  the  laziest 
of  this  lazy  race  will  not  think  it  labor  to  perform 
this  toil.  They  won't  like  to  eat  in  the  morning 
without  their  papers,  such  slaves  they  will  be 
to  this  droll  greed  for  knowing.  They  won't  even 
think  it  is  droll,  it  is  so  in  their  blood. 


Their  swollen  desire  for  investigating  every 
thing  about  them,  including  especially  other 
people's  affairs,  will  be  quenchless.  Few  will  feel 
that  they  really  are  "fully  informed";  and  all 
will  give  much  of  each  day  all  their  lives  to  the 
news. 

Books  too  will  be  used  to  slake  this  unap- 


I 

This  Simian  World 


peasable  thirst.  They  will  actually  hold  books 
in  deep  reverence.  Books!  Bottled  chatter!  things 
that  some  other  simian  has  formerly  said.  They 
will  dress  them  in  costly  bindings,  keep  them 
under  glass,  and  take  an  affecting  pride  in  the 
number  they  read.  Libraries,— store-houses  of 
books,— will  dot  their  world.  The  destruction  of 
one  will  be  a  crime  against  civilization.  (Mean 
ing,  again,  a  simian  civilization.)  Well,  it  is  an 
offense  to  be  sure— a  barbaric  offense.  But  so  is 
defacing  forever  a  beautiful  landscape;  and  they 
won't  even  notice  that  sometimes;  they  won't 
shudder  anyway,  the  way  they  instinctively  do 
at  the  loss  of  a  "library." 

All  this  is  inevitable  and  natural,  and  they 
cannot  help  it.  There  even  are  ways  one  can 
justify  excesses  like  this.  If  their  hunger  for 
books  ever  seems  indiscriminate  to  them  when 
they  themselves  stop  to  examine  it,  they  will 
have  their  excuses.  They  will  argue  that  some 
bits  of  knowledge  they  once  had  thought  futile, 
had  later  on  come  in  most  handy,  in  unthought 
of  ways.  True  enough!  For  their  scientists.  But 
-49- 


This  Simian  World 


not  for  their  average  men:  they  will  simply  be 
like  obstinate  housekeepers  who  clog  up  their 
homes,  preserving  odd  boxes  and  wrappings,  and 
stray  lengths  of  string,  to  exult  if  but  one  is  of 
some  trifling  use  ere  they  die.  It  will  be  in  this 
spirit  that  simians  will  cherish  their  books,  and 
pile  them  up  everywhere  into  great  indiscrimi 
nate  mounds;  and  these  mounds  will  seem  signs 
of  culture  and  sagacity  to  them. 

Those  who  know  many  facts  will  feel  wise! 
They  will  despise  those  who  don't.  They  will 
even  believe,  many  of  them,  that  knowledge  is 
power.  Unfortunate  dupes  of  this  saying  will 
keep  on  reading,  ambitiously,  till  they  have 
stunned  their  native  initiative,  and  made  their 
thoughts  weak;  and  will  then  wonder  dazedly 
what  in  the  world  is  the  matter,  and  why  the 
great  power  they  were  expecting  to  gain  fails 
to  appear.  Again,  if  they  ever  forget  what  they 
read,  they'll  be  worried.  Those  who  can  forget— 
those  with  fresh  eyes  who  have  swept  from  their 
minds  such  facts  as  the  exact  month  and  day  that 
their  children  were  born,  or  the  numbers  on 
houses,  or  the  names  (the  mere  meaningless 


This  Simian  World 


labels)  of  the  people  they  meet,— will  be  urged 
to  go  live  in  sanitariums  or  see  memory  doctors! 

By  nature  their  itch  is  rather  for  knowing, 
than  for  understanding  or  thinking.  Some  of 
them  will  learn  to  think,  doubtless,  and  even  to 
concentrate,  but  their  eagerness  to  acquire  those 
accomplishments  will  not  be  strong  or  insistent. 
Creatures  whose  mainspring  is  curiosity  will 
enjoy  the  accumulating  of  facts,  far  more  than 
the  pausing  at  times  to  reflect  on  those  facts. 
If  they  do  not  reflect  on  them,  of  course  they'll 
be  slow  to  find  out  about  the  ideas  and  relation 
ships  lying  behind  them;  and  they  will  be  curious 
about  those  ideas;  so  you  would  suppose  they'd 
reflect.  But  deep  thinking  is  painful.  It  means 
they  must  channel  the  spready  rivers  of  their 
attention.  That  cannot  be  done  without  disci 
pline  and  drills  for  the  mind;  and  they  will  abhor 
doing  that;  their  minds  will  work  better  when 
they  are  left  free  to  run  off  at  tangents. 

Compare  them  in  this  with  other  species. 
Each  has  its  own  kind  of  strength.  To  be  com 
pelled  to  be  so  quick-minded  as  the  simians 
—  51- 


This  Simian  World 


would  be  torture,  to  cows.  Cows  could  dwell  on 
one  idea,  week  by  week,  without  trying  at  all; 
but  they'd  all  have  brain-fever  in  an  hour  at  a 
simian  tea.  A  super-cow  people  would  revel  in 
long  thoughtful  books  on  abstruse  philosophical 
subjects,  and  would  sit  up  late  reading  them. 
Most  of  the  ambitious  simians  who  try  it— out 
of  pride— go  to  sleep.  The  typical  simian  brain 
is  supremely  distractable,  and  it's  really  too 
jumpy  by  nature  to  endure  much  reflection. 

Therefore  many  more  of  them  will  be  well- 
informed  than  sagacious. 

This  will  result  in  their  knowing  most  things 
far  too  soon,  at  too  early  a  stage  of  civilization 
to  use  them  aright.  They  will  learn  to  make 
valuable  explosives  at  a  stage  in  their  growth, 
when  they  will  use  them  not  only  in  industries, 
but  for  killing  brave  men.  They  will  devise  ways 
to  mine  coal  efficiently,  in  encrmous  amounts, 
at  a  stage  when  they  won't  know  enough  to  con 
serve  it,  and  will  waste  their  few  stores.  They 
will  use  up  a  lot  of  it  in  a  simian  habit 1  called 


i  Even  in  a   wild  state,  the  monkey  is  restless  and  does  not 
live  in  lairs. 

-52- 


This  Simian  World 


travel.  This  will  consist  in  queer  little  hurried 
runs  over  the  globe,  to  see  ten  thousand  things 
in  the  hope  of  thus  filling  their  minds. 

Their  minds  will  be  full  enough.  Their  in 
telligence  will  be  active  and  keen.  It  will  have  a 
constant  tendency  however  to  outstrip  their 
wisdom.  Their  intelligence  will  enable  them  to 
build  great  industrial  systems  before  they  have 
the  wisdom  and  goodness  to  run  them  aright. 
They  will  form  greater  political  empires  than 
they  will  have  strength  to  guide.  They  will  end 
lessly  quarrel  about  which  is  the  best  scheme 
of  government,  without  stopping  to  realize  that 
learning  to  govern  comes  first.  (The  average 
simian  will  imagine  he  knows  without  learning.) 

The  natural  result  will  be  industrial  and 
political  wars.  In  a  world  of  unmanageable 
structures,  wild  smashes  must  come. 


-53- 


TEN 


Inventions  will  come  so  easily  to  simians  (in 
comparison  with  all  other  creatures)  and  they 
will  take  such  childish  pleasure  in  monkeying 
around,  making  inventions,  that  their  many  de 
vices  will  be  more  of  a  care  than  a  comfort.  In 
their  homes  a  large  part  of  their  time  will  have 
to  be  spent  keeping  their  numerous  ingenuities 
in  good  working  order—  their  elaborate  bell- 
ringing  arrangements,  their  locks  and  their 
clocks.  In  the  field  of  science  to  be  sure,  this 
fertility  in  invention  will  lead  to  a  long  list  of 
important  and  beautiful  discoveries:  telescopes 
and  the  calculus,  radiographs,  and  the  spectrum. 
Discoveries  great  enough,  almost,  to  make  angels 
of  them.  But  here  again  their  simian-ness  will 
cheat  them  of  half  of  their  dues,  for  they  will 
neglect  great  discoveries  of  the  truest  impor 
tance,  and  honor  extravagantly  those  of  less 

-54- 


This  Simian  World 


value  and  splendor  if  only  they  cater  especially 
to  simian  traits. 

To  consider  examples:  A  discovery  that  helps 
them  to  talk,  just  to  talk,  more  and  more,  will 
be  hailed  by  these  beings  as  one  of  the  highest 
of  triumphs.  Talking  to  each  other  over  wires 
will  come  in  this  class.  The  lightning  when  har 
nessed  and  tamed  will  be  made  to  trot  round, 
conveying  the  most  trivial  cacklings  all  day  and 
night. 

Huge  seas  of  talk  of  every  sort  and  kind,  in 
print,  speech,  and  writing,  will  roll  unceasingly 
over  their  civilized  realms,  involving  an  un 
believable  waste  in  labor  and  time,  and  sapping 
the  intelligence  talk  is  supposed  to  upbuild.  In 
a  simian  civilization,  great  halls  will  be  erected 
for  lectures,  and  great  throngs  will  actually  pay 
to  go  inside  at  night  to  hear  some  self-satisfied 
talk-maker  chatter  for  hours.  Almost  any  subject 
will  do  for  a  lecture,  or  talk;  yet  very  few  sub 
jects  will  be  counted  important  enough  for  the 
average  man  to  do  any  thinking  on  them,  off  by 
himself. 

-55- 


This  Simian  World 


In  their  futurist  books  they  will  dream  of  an 
even  worse  state,  a  more  dreadful  indulgence 
in  communication  than  the  one  just  described. 
This  they'll  hope  to  achieve  by  a  system  called 
mental  telepathy.  They  will  long  to  communi 
cate  wordlessly,  mind  impinging  on  mind, 
until  all  their  minds  are  awash  with  messages 
every  moment,  and  withdrawal  from  the  stream 
is  impossible  anywhere  on  earth.  This  will  foster 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  (Conglomerateness  be 
ing  their  ideal.)  Super-cats  would  have  invented 
more  barriers  instead  of  more  channels. 

Discoveries  in  surgery  and  medicine  will  also 
be  over-praised.  The  reason  will  be  that  the  race 
will  so  need  these  discoveries.  Unlike  the  great 
cats,  simians  tend  to  undervalue  the  body.  Hav 
ing  less  self-respect,  less  proper  regard  for  their 
egos,  they  care  less  than  the  cats  do  for  the  casing 
of  the  ego,— the  body.  The  more  civilized  they 
grow  the  more  they  will  let  their  bodies  deterio 
rate.  They  will  let  their  shoulders  stoop,  their 
lungs  shrink,  and  their  stomachs  grow  fat.  No 
other  species  will  be  quite  so  deformed  and  dis 
torted.  Athletics  they  will  watch,  yes,  but  on  the 


This  Simian  World 


whole  sparingly  practise.  Their  snuffy  old  schol 
ars  will  even  be  proud  to  decry  them.  Where 
once  the  simians  swung  high  through  forests,  or 
scampered  like  deer,  their  descendants  will  plod 
around  farms,  or  mince  along  city  streets,  mov 
ing  constrictedly,  slowly,  their  litheness  half 
gone. 

They  will  think  of  Nature  as  "something  to 
go  out  and  look  at."  They  will  try  to  live  wholly 
apart  from  her  and  forget  they're  her  sons.  For 
get?  They  will  even  deny  it,  and  declare  them 
selves  sons  of  God.  In  spite  of  her  wonders  they 
will  regard  Nature  as  somehow  too  humble  to  be 
the  true  parent  of  such  prominent  people  as 
simians.  They  will  lose  all  respect  for  the  dignity 
of  fair  Mother  Earth,  and  whisper  to  each  other 
she  is  an  evil  and  indecent  old  person.  They  will 
snatch  at  her  gifts,  pry  irreverently  into  her  mys 
teries,  and  ignore  half  the  warnings  they  get 
from  her  about  how  to  live. 

Ailments  of  every  kind  will  abound  among 
such  folk,  inevitably,  and  they  will  resort  to  ex 
traordinary  expedients  in  their  search  for  relief. 
Although  squeamish  as  a  race  about  inflicting 

-57- 


y 

This  Simian  World 


much  pain  in  cold  blood,  they  will  systematically 
infect  other  animals  with  their  own  rank  dis 
eases,  or  cut  out  other  animals'  organs,  or  kill 
and  dissect  them,  hoping  thus  to  learn  how  to 
offset  their  neglect  of  themselves.  Conditions 
among  them  will  be  such  that  this  will  really  be 
necessary.  Few  besides  impractical  sentimental 
ists  will  therefore  oppose  it.  But  the  idea  will  be 
to  gain  health  by  legerdemain,  by  a  trick,  instead 
of  by  taking  the  trouble  to  live  healthy  lives. 

Strange  barrack-like  buildings  called  hospitals 
will  stand  in  their  cities,  where  their  trick-men, 
the  surgeons,  will  slice  them  right  open  when  ill; 
and  thousands  of  zealous  young  pharmacists  will 
mix  little  drugs,  which  thousands  of  wise-looking 
simians  will  firmly  prescribe.  Each  generation 
will  change  its  mind  as  to  these  drugs,  and  laugh 
at  all  former  opinions;  but  each  will  use  some 
of  them,  and  each  will  feel  assured  that  in  this 
respect  they  know  the  last  word. 

And,  in  obstinate  blindness,  this  people  will 
wag  their  poor  heads,  and  attribute  their  diseases 
not  to  simian-ness  but  to  civilization. 


This  Simian  World 


The  advantages  that  any  man  or  race  has,  can 
sometimes  be  handicaps.  Having  hands,  which 
so  aids  a  race,  for  instance,  can  also  be  harmful. 
The  simians  will  do  so  many  things  with  their 
hands,  it  will  be  bad  for  their  bodies.  Instead  of 
roaming  far  and  wide  over  the  country,  getting 
vigorous  exercise,  they  will  use  their  hands  to 
catch  and  tame  horses,  build  carriages,  motors, 
and  then  when  they  want  a  good  outing  they  will 
"go  for  a  ride,"  with  their  bodies  slumped  down, 
limp  and  sluggish,  and  losing  their  spring. 

Then  too  their  brains  will  do  harm,  and  great 
harm,  to  their  bodies.  The  brain  will  give  them 
such  an  advantage  over  all  other  animals  that 
they  will  insensibly  be  led  to  rely  too  much  on  it, 
to  give  it  too  free  a  rein,  and  to  find  the  mirrors 
in  it  too  fascinating.  This  organ,  this  outgrowth, 
this  new  part  of  them,  will  grow  over-active,  and 
its  many  fears  and  fancies  will  naturally  injure 
the  body.  The  interadjustment  is  delicate  and 
intimate,  the  strain  is  continuous.  When  the 
brain  fails  to  act  with  the  body,  or,  worse,  works 
against  it,  the  body  will  sicken  no  matter  what 
cures  doctors  try. 

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This  Simian  World 


As  in  bodily  self-respect,  so  in  racial  self- 
respect,  they'll  be  wanting.  They  will  have 
plenty  of  racial  pride  and  prejudice,  but  that  is 
not  the  same  thing.  That  will  make  them  angry 
when  simians  of  one  color  mate  with  those  of 
another.  But  a  general  deterioration  in  physique 
will  cause  much  less  excitement. 

They  will  talk  about  improving  the  race— they 
will  talk  about  everything— but  they  won't  use 
their  chances  to  do  it.  Whenever  a  new  discovery 
makes  life  less  hard,  for  example,  these  heedless 
beings  will  seldom  preserve  this  advantage,  or 
use  their  new  wealth  to  take  more  time  there 
after  for  thought,  or  to  gain  health  and  strength 
or  do  anything  else  to  make  the  race  better.  In 
stead,  they  will  use  the  new  ease  just  to  increase 
in  numbers;  and  they  will  keep  on  at  this  until 
misery  once  more  has  checked  them.  Life  will 
then  be  as  hard  as  ever,  naturally,  and  the  chance 
will  be  gone. 

They  will  have  a  proverb,  "The  poor  ye  have 
always  with  you,"— said  by  one  who  knew 
simians. 

Their  ingenious  minds  will  have  an  answer  to 
-60- 


This  Simian  World 


this.  They  will  argue  it  is  well  that  life  should  be 
Spartan  and  hard,  because  of  the  discipline  and 
its  strengthening  effects  on  the  character.  But 
the  good  effects  of  this  sort  of  discipline  will  be 
mixed  with  sad  wreckage.  And  only  creatures 
incapable  of  disciplining  themselves  could  thus 
argue.  It  is  an  odd  expedient  to  get  yourself  into 
trouble  just  for  discipline's  sake. 

The  fact  is,  however,  the  argument  won't  be 
sincere.  When  their  nations  grow  so  over-popu 
lous  and  their  families  so  large  it  means  misery, 
that  will  not  be  a  sign  of  their  having  felt  ready 
for  discipline.  It  will  be  a  sign  of  their  not  having 
practised  it  in  their  sexual  lives. 


—  61- 


ELE  YEN 


The  simians  are  always  being  stirred  by  desire 
and  passion.  It  constantly  excites  them,  con 
stantly  runs  through  their  minds.  Wild  or  tame, 
primitive  or  cultured,  this  is  a  brand  of  the 
breed.  Other  species  have  times  and  seasons  for 
sexual  matters,  but  the  simian-folk  are  thus  pre 
occupied  all  the  year  round. 

This  super-abundance  of  desire  is  not  neces 
sarily  good  or  bad,  of  itself.  But  to  shape  it  for 
the  best  it  will  have  to  be  studied—  and  faced. 
This  they  will  not  do.  Some  of  them  won't  like 
to  study  it,  deeming  it  bad—  deeming  it  bad  yet 
yielding  constantly  to  it.  Others  will  hesitate  be 
cause  they  will  deem  it  so  sacred,  or  will  secretly 
fear  that  study  might  show  them  it  ought  to  be 
curbed. 

Meantime,  this  part  of  their  nature  will  be 
coloring  all  their  activities.  It  will  beautify  their 
arts,  and  erotically  confuse  their  religions.  It 
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This  Simian  World 


will  lend  a  little  interest  to  even  their  dull  social 
functions.  It  will  keep  alive  degrading  social 
evils  in  all  their  great  towns.  Through  these  lat 
ter  evils,  too,  their  politics  will  be  corrupted; 
especially  their  best  and  most  democratic  at 
tempts  at  self-government.  Self-government 
works  best  among  those  who  have  learned  to 
self-govern. 

In  the  far  distant  ages  that  lie  before  us  what 
will  be  the  result  of  this  constant  preoccupation 
with  desire?  Will  it  kill  us  or  save  us?  Will  this 
trait  and  our  insatiable  curiosity  interact  on  each 
other?  That  might  further  eugenics.  That  might 
give  us  a  better  chance  to  breed  finely  than  all 
other  species. 

We  already  owe  a  great  deal  to  passion:  more 
than  men  ever  realize.  Wasn't  it  Darwin  who 
once  even  risked  the  conjecture  that  the  vocal 
organs  themselves  were  developed  for  sexual 
purposes,  the  object  being  to  call  or  charm  one's 
mate.  Hence— perhaps— only  animals  that  were 
continuously  concerned  with  their  matings 


This  Simian  World 


would  be  at  all  likely  to  form  an  elaborate  lan 
guage.  And  without  an  elaborate  language, 
growth  is  apt  to  be  slow. 

If  we  owe  this  to  passion,  what  follows?  Does 
it  mean,  for  example,  that  the  more  different 
mates  that  each  simian  once  learned  to  charm, 
the  more  rapidly  language,  and  with  it  civiliza 
tion,  advanced? 


T  w  EL  v  E 


A  doctor,  who  was  making  a  study  of  monkeys, 
once  told  me  that  he  was  trying  experiments  that 
bore  on  the  polygamy  question.  He  had  a  young 
monkey  named  Jack  who  had  mated  with  a  fe 
male  named  Jill;  and  in  another  cage  another 
newly-wedded  pair,  Arabella  and  Archer.  Each 
pair  seemed  absorbed  in  each  other,  and  devoted 
and  happy.  They  even  hugged  each  other  at 
mealtime  and  exchanged  bits  of  food. 

After  a  time  their  transports  grew  less  fiery, 
and  their  affections  less  fixed.  Archer  got  a  bit 
bored.  He  was  decent  about  it,  though,  and 
when  Arabella  cuddled  beside  him  he  would 
more  or  less  perfunctorily  embrace  her.  But 
when  he  forgot,  she  grew  cross. 

The  same  thing  occurred  a  little  later  in  the 
Jack  and  Jill  cage,  only  there  it  was  Jill  who  be 
came  a  little  tired  of  Jack. 

Soon  each  pair  was  quarreling.  They  usually 


This  Simian  World 


made  UP>  Pretty 

soon,  and  started 


g5>  ^   lovins    again' 
i,  /-^x^ 


/"•* 

Q 


,-/     i,  'r  -  v^   But  k  t*'ered 

out;    each    time 
more  quickly. 

Meanwhile 
the  two  fam 
ilies  had  be 
come  interested 
in  watching  each 
other.  When  Jill  had  repulsed  Jack,  and  he 
had  moped  about  it  awhile,  he  would  begin 
staring  at  Arabella,  over  opposite,  and  trying 
to  attract  her  attention.  This  got  Jack  in  trouble 
all  around.  Arabella  indignantly  made  faces  at 
him  and  then  turned  her  back;  and  as  for  Jill, 
she  grew  furious,  and  tore  out  his  fur. 

But  in  the  next  stage,  they  even  stopped  hat 
ing  each  other.  Each  pair  grew  indifferent. 

Then  the  doctor  put  Jack  in  with  Arabella, 

and  Archer  with  Jill.  Arabella  promptly  yielded 

to  Jack.  New  devotion.  More  transports.  Jill  and 

Archer  were  shocked.  Jill  clung  to  the  bars  of 

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This  Simian  World 


her  cage,  quivering,  and  screaming  remon 
strance;  and  even  blase  Archer  chattered  angrily 
at  some  of  the  scenes.  Then  the  doctor  hung  cur 
tains  between  the  cages  to  shut  out  the  view.  Jill 
and  Archer,  left  to  each  other,  grew  interested. 
They  soon  were  inseparable. 

The  four  monkeys,  thus  re-distributed,  were 
now  happy  once  more,  and  full  of  new  liveliness 
and  spirit.  But  before  very  long,  each  pair  quar 
reled—and  made  up— and  quarreled— and  then 
grew  indifferent,  and  had  cynical  thoughts  about 
life. 

At  this  point,  the  doctor  put  them  back  with 
their  original  mates. 

And— they  met  with  a  rush!  Gave  cries  of 
recognition  and  joy,  like  faithful  souls  reunited. 
And  when  they  were  tired,  they  affectionately 
curled  up  together;  and  hugged  each  other  even 
at  mealtime,  and  exchanged  bits  of  food. 

This  was  as  far  as  the  doctor  had  gotten,  at  the 
time  that  I  met  him;  and  as  I  have  lost  touch 
with  him  since,  I  don't  know  how  things  were 
afterward.  His  theory  at  the  time  was,  that  vari- 

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This  Simian  World 


ety  was  good  for  fidelity. 

"So  many  of  us  feel  this  way,  it  may  be  in  the 
blood,"  he  concluded.  "Some  creatures,  such  as 
wolves,  are  more  serious;  or  perhaps  more  cold 
blooded.  Never  mate  but  once.  Well— we're  not 
wolves.  We  can't  make  wolves  our  models.  Of 
course  we  are  not  monkeys  either,  but  at  any 
rate  they  are  our  cousins.  Perhaps  wolves  can  be 
continent  without  any  trouble  at  all,  but  it's 
harder  for  simians:  it  may  affect  their  nervous 
systems  injuriously.  If  we  want  to  know  how  to 
behave,  according  to  the  way  Nature  made  us,  I 
say  that  with  all  due  allowances  we  should  study 
the  monkeys/* 

To  be  sure,  these  particular  monkeys  were  liv 
ing  in  idleness.  This  corresponds  to  living  in 
high  social  circles  with  us,  where  men  do  not 
have  to  work,  and  lack  some  of  the  common  in 
centives  to  home-building.  The  experiment  was 
not  conclusive. 

Still,  even  in  low  social  circles — 


-68- 


THI  R  TEEM 


Are  we  or  are  we  not  simians?  It  is  no  use  for 
any  man  to  try  to  think  anything  else  out  until 
he  has  decided  first  of  all  where  he  stands  on  that 
question.  It  is  not  only  in  love  affairs:  let  us  lay 
all  that  aside  for  the  moment.  It  is  in  ethics, 
economics,  art,  education,  philosophy,  what-not. 
If  we  are  fallen  angels,  we  should  go  this  road:  if 
we  are  super-apes,  that. 

"Our  problem  is  not  to  discover  what  we 
ought  to  do  if  we  were  different,  but  what  we 
ought  to  do,  being  what  we  are.  There  is  no  end 
to  the  beings  we  can  imagine  different  from  our 
selves;  but  they  do  not  exist,"  and  we  cannot  be 
sure  they  would  be  better  than  we  if  they  did. 
For,  when  we  imagine  them,  we  must  imagine 
their  entire  environment;  they  would  have  to  be 
a  part  of  some  whole  that  does  not  now  exist. 
And  that  new  whole,  that  new  reality,  being 
merely  a  figment  of  our  little  minds,  "would 


This  Simian  World 


probably  be  inferior  to  the  reality  that  is.  For 
there  is  this  to  be  said  in  favor  of  reality:  that  we 
have  nothing  to  compare  it  with.  Our  fantasies 
are  always  incomplete,  because  they  are  fantasies. 
And  reality  is  complete.  We  cannot  compare 
their  incompleteness  with  its  completeness."  1 

Too  many  moralists  begin  with  a  dislike  of 
reality:  a  dislike  of  men  as  they  are.  They  are 
free  to  dislike  them— but  not  at  the  same  time  to 
be  moralists.  Their  feeling  leads  them  to  ignore 
the  obligation  which  should  rest  on  all  teachers, 
"to  discover  the  best  that  man  can  do,  not  to  set 
impossibilities  before  him  and  tell  him  that  if 
he  does  not  perform  them  he  is  damned." 

Man  is  moldable;  very;  and  it  is  desirable  that 
he  should  aspire.  But  he  is  apt  to  be  hasty  about 
accepting  any  and  all  general  ideals  without  fig 
uring  out  whether  they  are  suitable  for  simian 
use. 

One  result  of  his  habit  of  swallowing  whole 
most  of  the  ideals  that  occur  to  him,  is  that  he 
has  swallowed  a  number  that  strongly  conflict. 

iFrom  an  anonymous  article  entitled  "Tolstoy  and  Russia" 
in  the  London  Times,  Sept.  26,   1918. 

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This  Simian  World 


Any  ideal  whatever  strains  our  digestions  if  it  is 
hard  to  assimilate:  but  when  two  at  once  act  on 
us  in  different  ways,  it  is  unbearable.  In  such  a 
case,  the  poets  will  prefer  the  ideal  that's  ideal- 
est:  the  hard-headed  instinctively  choose  the  one 
adapted  to  simians. 

Whenever  this  is  argued,  extremists  spring  up 
on  each  side.  One  extremist  will  say  that  being 
mere  simians  we  cannot  transcend  much,  and 
will  seem  to  think  that  having  limitations  we 
should  preserve  them  forever.  The  other  will 
declare  that  we  are  not  merely  simians,  never 
were  just  plain  animals;  or,  if  we  were,  souls  were 
somehow  smuggled  in  to  us,  since  which  time 
we  have  been  different.  We  have  all  been  perfect 
at  heart  since  that  date,  equipped  with  beautiful 
spirits,  which  only  a  strange  perverse  obstinacy 
leads  us  to  soil. 

What  this  obstinacy  is,  is  the  problem  that 
confronts  theologians.  They  won't  think  of  it  as 
simian-ness;  they  call  it  original  sin.  They  regard 
it  as  the  voice  of  some  devil,  and  say  good  men 
should  not  listen  to  it.  The  scientists  say  it  isn't 
a  devil,  it  is  part  of  our  nature,  which  should  of 
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This  Simian  World 


course  be  civilized  and  guided,  but  should  not 
be  stamped  out.  (It  might  mutilate  us  danger 
ously  to  become  under-simianized.  Look  at 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  and  George  Washington. 
Worthy  souls,  but  no  flavor.) 

In  every  field  of  thought  then,  two  schools  ap 
pear,  that  are  divided  on  this:  Must  we  forever 
be  at  heart  high-grade  simians?  Or  are  we  at 
heart  something  else? 

For  example,  in  education,  we  have  in  the 
main  two  great  systems.  One  depends  upon  dis 
cipline.  The  other  on  exciting  the  interest.  The 
teacher  who  does  not  recognize  or  allow  for  our 
simian  nature,  keeps  little  children  at  work  for 
long  periods  at  dull  and  dry  tasks.  Without  some 
such  discipline,  he  fears  that  his  boys  will  lack 
strength.  The  other  system  believes  they  will 
learn  more  when  their  interest  is  roused;  and 
when  their  minds,  which  are  mobile  by  nature, 
are  allowed  to  keep  moving. 

Or  in  politics:  the  best  government  for  simi 
ans  seems  to  be  based  on  a  parliament:  a  talk- 
room,  where  endless  vague  thoughts  can  be 
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This  Simian  World 


expressed.  This  is  the  natural  child  of  those 
primeval  sessions  that  gave  pleasure  to  apes.  It 
is  neither  an  ideal  nor  a  rational  arrangement  of 
course.  Small  executive  committees  would  be 
better.  But  not  if  we  are  simians. 

Or  in  industry:  Why  do  factory  workers  pro 
duce  more  in  eight  hours  a  day  than  in  ten?  It 
is  absurd.  Super-sheep  could  not  do  it.  But  that 
is  the  way  men  are  made.  To  preach  to  such  be 
ings  about  the  dignity  of  labor  is  futile.  The 
dignity  of  labor  is  not  a  simian  conception  at  all. 
True  simians  hate  to  have  to  work  steadily:  they 
call  it  grind  and  confinement.  They  are  always 
ready  to  pity  the  toilers  who  are  condemned  to 
this  fate,  and  to  congratulate  those  who  escape 
it,  or  who  can  do  something  else.  When  they  see 
some  performer  in  spangles  risk  his  life,  at  a 
circus,  swinging  around  on  trapezes,  high  up  in 
the  air,  and  when  they  are  told  he  must  do  it 
daily,  do  they  pity  him?  No!  Super-elephants 
would  say,  and  quite  properly,  "What  a  horrible 
life!"  But  it  naturally  seems  stimulating  to  simi 
ans.  Boys  envy  the  fellow.  On  the  other  hand 
whenever  we  are  told  about  factory  life,  we  in- 

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This  Simian  World 


stinctively  shudder  to  think  of  enduring  such 
evils.  We  see  some  old  workman,  filling  cans  with 
a  whirring  machine;  and  we  hear  the  humani 
tarians  telling  us,  indignant  and  grieving,  that 
he  actually  must  stand  in  that  nice,  warm,  dry 
room  every  day,  safe  from  storms  and  wild  beasts, 
and  with  nothing  to  do  but  fill  cans;  and  at  once 
we  groan:  "How  deadly!  What  monotonous  toil! 
Shorten  his  hours!"  His  work  would  seem  bliss 
ful  to  super-spiders,— but  to  us  it's  intolerable. 
The  factory  system  is  meant  for  other  species 
than  ours. 

Our  monkey-blood  is  also  apparent  in  our 
judgments  of  crime.  If  a  crime  is  committed  on 
impulse,  we  partly  forgive  it.  Why?  Because,  be 
ing  simians,  with  a  weakness  for  yielding  to  im 
pulses,  we  like  to  excuse  ourselves  by  feeling  not 
accountable  for  them.  Elephants  would  have 
probably  taken  an  opposite  stand.  They  aren't 
creatures  of  impulse,  and  would  be  shocked  at 
crimes  due  to  such  causes;  their  fault  is  the  op 
posite  one  of  pondering  too  long  over  injuries, 
and  becoming  vindictive  in  the  end,  out  of  all 
due  proportion.  If  a  young  super-elephant  were 

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This  Simian  World 


to  murder  another  on  impulse,  they  would  con 
sider  him  a  dangerous  character  and  string  him 
right  up.  But  if  he  could  prove  that  he  had  long 
thought  of  doing  it,  they  would  tend  to  forgive 
him.  "Poor  fellow,  he  brooded,"  they  would  say. 
"That's  upsetting  to  any  one." 

As  to  modesty  and  decency,  if  we  are  simians 
we  have  done  well,  considering:  but  if  we  are 
something  else— fallen  angels— we  have  indeed 
fallen  far.  Not  being  modest  by  instinct  we  in 
vent  artificial  ideals,  which  are  doubtless  well- 
meaning  but  are  inherently  of  course  second- 
rate,  so  that  even  at  our  best  we  smell  prudish. 
And  as  for  our  worst,  when  we  as  we  say  let  our 
selves  go,  we  dirty  the  life-force  unspeakably, 
with  chuckles  and  leers.  But  a  race  so  indecent 
by  nature  as  the  simians  are  would  naturally  have 
a  hard  time  behaving  as  though  they  were  not: 
and  the  strain  of  pretending  that  their  thoughts 
were  all  pretty  and  sweet,  would  naturally  send 
them  to  smutty  extremes  for  relief.  The  stand 
ards  of  purity  we  have  adopted  are  far  too  strict 
—for  simians. 

-75- 


FO  UR  TEEN 


We  were  speaking  a  while  ago  of  the  fertility 
with  which  simians  breed.  This  is  partly  due  to 
the  constant  love  interest  they  take  in  each  other, 
but  it  is  also  reenforced  by  their  reliance  on 
numbers.  That  reliance  will  be  deep,  since,  to 
their  numbers,  they  will  owe  much  success.  It 
will  be  thus  that  they  will  drive  out  other  species, 
and  garrison  the  globe.  Such  a  race  would  natu 
rally  come  to  esteem  fertility.  It  will  seem  pro 
fane  not  to. 

As  time  goes  on,  however,  the  advantage  of 
numbers  will  end;  and  in  their  higher  stages, 
large  numbers  will  be  a  great  drawback.  The  re 
sources  of  a  planet  are  limited,  at  each  stage  of 
the  arts.  Also,  there  is  only  a  limited  space  on  a 
planet.  Yet  it  will  come  hard  to  them  to  think 
of  ever  checking  their  increase.  They  will  bring 
more  young  into  existence  than  they  can  either 
keep  well  or  feed.  The  earth  will  be  covered  with 

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This  Simian  World 


them  everywhere,  as  far  as  eye  can  see.  North 
and  south,  east  and  west,  there  will  always  be 
simians  huddling.  Their  cities  will  be  far  more 
distressing  than  cities  of  vermin,— for  vermin  are 
healthy  and  calm  and  successful  in  life. 

Ah,  those  masses  of  people— unintelligent,  su 
perstitious,  uncivilized!  What  a  dismal  drain 
they  will  be  on  the  race's  strength!  Not  merely 
will  they  lessen  its  ultimate  chance  of  achieve 
ment;  their  hardships  will  always  distress  and 
preoccupy  minds,— fine,  generous  minds,— that 
might  have  done  great  things  if  free:  that  might 
have  done  something  constructive  at  least,  for 
their  era,  instead  of  being  burned  out  attacking 
mere  anodyne-problems. 

Nature  will  do  what  it  can  to  lessen  the  strain, 
providing  an  appropriate  remedy  for  their  bad 
behavior  in  plagues.  Many  epochs  will  pass  be 
fore  the  simians  will  learn  or  dare  to  control 
them—for  they  won't  think  they  can,  any  more 
than  they  dare  control  propagation.  They  will 
reverently  call  their  propagation  and  plagues 
"acts  of  God."  When  they  get  tired  of  reverence 
and  stop  their  plagues,  it  will  be  too  soon.  Their 

-77- 


This  Simian  World 


inventiveness  will  be— as  usual— ahead  of  their 
wisdom;  and  they  will  unfortunately  end  the 
good  effects  of  plagues  (as  a  check)  before  they 
are  advanced  enough  to  keep  down  their  num 
bers  themselves. 

Meanwhile,  when,  owing  to  the  pressure  of 
other  desires,  any  group  of  primates  does  happen 
to  become  less  prolific,  they  will  feel  ashamed, 
talk  of  race  suicide,  and  call  themselves  deca 
dent.  And  they  will  often  be  right:  for  though 
some  regulation  of  the  birth-rate  is  an  obvious 
good,  and  its  diminution  often  desirable  in  any 
planet's  history,  yet  among  simians  it  will  be  apt 
to  come  from  second-rate  motives.  Greed,  selfish 
ness  or  fear-thoughts  will  be  the  incentives,  the 
bribes.  Contrivances,  rather  than  continence, 
will  be  the  method.  How  audacious,  and  how 
disconcerting  to  Nature,  to  baffle  her  thus!  Even 
into  her  shrine  they  must  thrust  their  bold  paws 
to  control  her.  Another  race  viewing  them  in  the 
garlanded  chambers  of  love,  unpacking  their 
singular  devices,  might  think  them  grotesque: 
but  the  busy  little  simians  will  be  blind  to  such 
quaint  incongruities. 

-78- 


This  Simian  World 


Still,  there  is  a  great  gift  that  their  excess  of 
passion  will  bestow  on  this  race:  it  will  give  them 
romance.  It  will  teach  them  what  little  they  ever 
will  learn  about  love.  Other  animals  have  little 
romance:  there  is  none  in  the  rut:  that  seasonal 
madness  that  drives  them  to  mate  with  perhaps 
the  first  comer.  But  the  simians  will  attain  to  a 
fine  discrimination  in  love,  and  this  will  be  their 
path  to  the  only  spiritual  heights  they  can  reach. 
For,  in  love,  their  inmost  selves  will  draw  near, 
in  the  silence  of  truth;  learning  little  by  little 
what  the  deepest  sincerity  means,  and  what  clean 
hearts  and  minds  and  what  crystal-clear  sight  it 
demands.  Such  intercommunication  of  spirit 
with  spirit  is  at  the  beginning  of  all  true  under 
standing.  It  is  the  beginning  of  silent  cosmic 
wisdom:  it  may  lead  to  knowing  the  ways  of  that 
power  called  God. 


-79- 


FIFTEEN 


Not  content  with  the  whole  of  a  planet  and 
themselves  too,  to  study,  this  race's  children  will 
also  study  the  heavens.  How  few  kinds  of  crea 
tures  would  ever  have  felt  that  impulse,  and  yet 
how  natural  it  will  seem  to  these!  How  bound 
less  and  magnificent  is  the  curiosity  of  these  tiny 
beings,  who  sit  and  peer  out  at  the  night  from 
their  small  whirling  globe,  considering  deeply 
the  huge  cold  seas  of  space,  and  learning  with 
wonderful  skill  to  measure  the  stars. 

In  studies  so  vast,  however,  they  are  tested  to 
the  core.  In  these  great  journeys  the  traveler 
must  pay  dear  for  his  flaws.  For  it  always  is  when 
you  most  finely  are  exerting  your  strength  that 
every  weakness  you  have  most  tells  against  you. 

One  weakness  of  the  primates  is  the  character 

of  their  self-consciousness.  This  useful  faculty, 

that  can  probe  so  deep,  has  one  naive  defect—it 

relies  too  readily  on  its  own  findings.  It  doesn't 

-80- 


This  Simian  World 


suspect  enough  its  own  unconfessed  predilec 
tions.  It  assumes  that  it  can  be  completely  im 
partial—but  isn't.  To  instance  an  obvious  way 
in  which  it  will  betray  them:  beings  that  are 
intensely  self-conscious  and  aware  of  their  selves, 
will  also  instinctively  feel  that  their  universe  is. 
What  active  principle  animates  the  world,  they 
will  ask.  A  great  blind  force?  It  is  possible.  But 
they  will  recoil  from  admitting  any  such  possibil 
ity.  A  self-aware  purposeful  force  then?  That  is 
better!  (More  simian.)  "A  blind  force  can't  have 
been  the  creator  of  all.  It's  unthinkable."  Any 
theory  their  brains  find  "unthinkable"  cannot 
be  true. 

(This  is  not  to  argue  that  it  really  is  a  blind 
force — or  the  opposite.  It  is  merely  an  instance 
of  how  little  impartial  they  are.) 

A  second  typical  weakness  of  this  race  will 
come  from  their  fears.  They  are  not  either  self- 
sufficing  or  gallant  enough  to  travel  great  roads 
without  cringing,— clear-eyed,  unafraid.  They 
are  finely  made,  but  not  nobly  made,— in  that 
sense.  They  will  therefore  have  a  too  urgent  need 
-81- 


This  Simian  World 


of  religion.  Few  primates  have  the  courage  to 
face— alone— the  still  inner  mysteries:  Infin 
ity,  Space  and  Time.  They  will  think  it  too  ter 
rible,  they  will  feel  it  would  turn  them  to  water, 
to  live  through  unearthly  moments  of  vision 
without  creeds  or  beliefs.  So  they'll  get  beliefs 
first.  Ah,  poor  creatures!  The  cart  before  the 
horse!  Ah,  the  blasphemy  (pitiful!)  of  their  seek 
ing  high  spiritual  temples,  with  god-maps  or 
bibles  about  them,  made  below  in  advance! 
Think  of  their  entering  into  the  presence  of 
Truth,  declaring  so  loudly  and  boldly  they  know 
her  already,  yet  far  from  willing  to  stand  or  fall 
by  her  flames— to  rise  like  a  phoenix  or  die  as  an 
honorable  cinder!— but  creeping  in,  clad  in  their 
queer  blindfolded  beliefs,  designed  to  shield 
them  from  her  stern,  bright  tests!  Think  of 
Truth  sadly— or  merrily— eyeing  such  worms! 


-82- 


SIXTEEN 


Imagine  you  are  watching  the  Bandarlog  at  play 
in  the  forest.  As  you  behold  them  and  compre 
hend  their  natures,  now  hugely  brave  and  boast 
ful,  now  full  of  dread,  the  most  weakly  emotional 
of  any  intelligent  species,  ever  trying  to  attract 
the  notice  of  some  greater  animal,  not  happy  in 
deed  unless  noticed,—  is  it  not  plain  they  are 
bound  to  invent  things  called  gods?  Don't  think 
for  the  moment  of  whether  there  are  gods  or  not; 
think  of  how  sure  these  beings  would  be  to  in 
vent  them.  (Not  wait  to  find  them.)  Having 
small  self-reliance  they  can  not  bear  to  face  life 
alone.  With  no  self-sufficingness,  they  must  have 
the  countenance  of  others.  It  is  these  pressing 
needs  that  will  hurry  the  primates  to  build,  out 
of  each  shred  of  truth  they  can  possibly  twist  to 
their  purpose,  and  out  of  imaginings  that  will 
impress  them  because  they  are  vast,  deity  after 
deity  to  prop  up  their  souls. 


This  Simian  World 


What  a  strange  company  they  will  be,  these 
gods,  in  their  day,  each  of  them  an  old  bearded 
simian  up  in  the  sky,  who  begins  by  fishing  the 
universe  out  of  a  void,  like  a  conjurer  taking  a 
rabbit  out  of  a  hat.  (A  hat  which,  if  it  resembled 
a  void,  wasn't  there.)  And  after  creating  enor 
mous  suns  and  spheres,  and  filling  the  farthest 
heavens  with  vaster  stars,  one  god  will  turn  back 
and  long  for  the  smell  of  roast  flesh,  another  will 
call  desert  tribes  to  "holy"  wars,  and  a  third  will 
grieve  about  divorce  or  dancing. 

All  gods  that  any  groups  of  simians  ever  con 
ceive  of,  from  the  woodenest  little  idol  in  the 
forest  to  the  mightiest  Spirit,  no  matter  how 
much  they  may  differ,  will  have  one  trait  in  com 
mon:  a  readiness  to  drop  any  cosmic  affair  at 
short  notice,  focus  their  minds  on  the  far-away 
pellet  called  Earth,  and  become  immediately 
wholly  concerned,  aye,  engrossed,  with  any  indi 
vidual  worshipper's  woes  or  desires, — a  readiness 
to  notice  a  fellow  when  he  is  going  to  bed.  This 
will  bring  indescribable  comfort  to  simian 
hearts;  and  a  god  that  neglects  this  duty  won't 
-84- 


This  Simian  World 


last  very  long,  no  matter  how  competent  he  may 
be  in  other  respects. 

But  one  must  reciprocate.  For  the  maker  of 
the  Cosmos,  as  they  see  him,  wants  noticing  too; 
he  is  fond  of  the  deference  and  attention  that 
simians  pay  him,  and  naturally  he  will  be  angry 
if  it  is  withheld; — or  if  he  is  not,  it  will  be  most 
magnanimous  of  him.  Hence  prayers  and  hymns. 
Hence  queer  vague  attempts  at  communing  with 
this  noble  kinsman. 

To  desire  communion  with  gods  is  a  lofty 
desire,  but  hard  to  attain  through  an  ignobly 
definite  creed.  Dealing  with  the  highest,  most 
wordless  states  of  being,  the  simians  will  attempt 
to  conceive  them  in  material  form.  They  will 
have  beliefs,  for  example,  as  to  the  furnishings 
and  occupations  in  heaven.  And  why?  Why,  to 
help  men  to  have  religious  conceptions  without 
themselves  being  seers,— which  in  any  true  sense 
of  "religious"  is  an  impossible  plan. 

In  their  efforts  to  be  concrete  they  will  make 
their  creeds  amusingly  simian.  Consider  the 


This  Simian  World 


simian  amorousness  of  Jupiter,  and  the  brawls 
on  Olympus.  Again,  in  the  old  Jewish  Bible, 
what  tempts  the  first  pair?  The  Tree  of  Knowl 
edge,  of  course.  It  appealed  to  the  curiosity  of 
their  nature,  and  who  could  control  that! 

And  Satan  in  the  Bible  is  distinctly  a  simian's 
devil.  The  snake,  it  is  known,  is  the  animal 
monkeys  most  dread.  Hence  when  men  give  their 
devil  a  definite  form  they  make  him  a  snake.  A 
race  of  super-chickens  would  have  pictured  their 
devil  a  hawk. 


-86- 


SE  V  ENT  EEN 


What  are  the  handicaps  this  race  will  have  in 
building  religions?  The  greatest  is  this:  they 
have  such  small  psychic  powers.  The  over-activ 
ity  of  their  minds  will  choke  the  birth  of  such 
powers,  or  dull  them.  The  race  will  be  less  in 
touch  with  Nature,  some  day,  than  its  dogs.  It 
will  substitute  the  compass  for  its  once  innate 
sense  of  direction.  It  will  lose  its  gifts  of  natural 
intuition,  premonition,  and  rest,  by  encouraging 
its  use  of  the  mind  to  be  cheaply  incessant. 

This  lack  of  psychic  power  will  cheat  them  of 
insight  and  poise;  for  minds  that  are  wandering 
and  active,  not  receptive  and  still,  can  seldom  or 
never  be  hushed  to  a  warm  inner  peace. 

One  service  these  restless  minds  however  will 
do:  they  eventually  will  see  through  the  religions 
they  themselves  invented. 

But  ages  will  be  thrown  away  in  repeating  this 
process. 

-87- 


This  Simian  World 


A  simian  creed  will  not  be  very  hard  thus  to 
pierce.  When  forming  a  religion,  they  will  be  in 
far  too  much  haste,  to  wait  to  apply  a  strict  test  to 
their  holy  men's  visions.  Furthermore  they  will 
have  so  few  visions,  that  any  will  awe  them;  so 
naturally  they  will  accept  any  vision  as  valid. 
Then  their  rapid  and  fertile  inventiveness  will 
come  into  play,  and  spin  the  wildest  creeds  from 
each  vision  living  dust  ever  dreamed. 

They  will  next  expect  everybody  to  believe 
whatever  a  few  men  have  seen,  on  the  slippery 
ground  that  if  you  simply  try  believing  it,  you 
will  then  feel  it's  true.  Such  religions  are  vicari 
ous;  their  prophets  alone  will  see  God,  and  the 
rest  will  be  supposed  to  be  introduced  to  him  by 
the  prophets.  These  * 'believers"  will  have  no 
white  insight  at  all  of  their  own. 

Now,  a  second-hand  believer  who  is  warmed 
at  one  remove— if  at  all— by  the  breath  of  the 
spirit,  will  want  to  have  exact  definitions  in  the 
beliefs  he  accepts.  Not  having  had  a  vision  to  go 
by,  he  needs  plain  commandments.  He  will  al 
ways  try  to  crystallize  creeds.  And  that,  plainly, 
is  fatal.  For  as  time  goes  on,  new  and  remoter 
-88- 


This  Simian  World 


aspects  of  truth  are  discovered,  which  can  seldom 
or  never  be  fitted  into  creeds  that  are  changeless. 

Over  and  over  again,  this  will  be  the  process: 
A  spiritual  personality  will  be  born;  see  new 
truth;  and  be  killed.  His  new  truth  not  only  will 
not  fit  into  too  rigid  creeds,  but  whatever  false 
finality  is  in  them  it  must  contradict.  So,  the  seer 
will  be  killed. 

His  truth  being  mighty,  however,  it  will  kill 
the  creeds  too. 

There  will  then  be  nothing  left  to  believe  in— 
except  the  dead  seer. 

For  a  few  generations  he  may  then  be  under- 
standingly  honored.  But  his  priests  will  feel  that 
is  not  enough:  he  must  be  honored  uncritically: 
so  uncritically  that,  whatever  his  message,  it  must 
be  deemed  the  Whole  Truth.  Some  of  his  mes 
sage  they  themselves  will  have  garbled;  and  it 
was  not,  at  best,  final;  but  still  it  will  be  made 
into  a  fixed  creed  and  given  his  name.  Truth 
will  be  given  his  name.  All  men  who  thereafter 
seek  truth  must  find  only  his  kind,  else  they 
won't  be  his  "followers."  (To  be  his  co-seekers 

-89- 


This  Simian  World 


won't  do.)  Priests  will  always  hate  any  new  seers 
who  seek  further  for  truth.  Their  feeling  will  be 
that  their  seer  found  it,  and  thus  ended  all  that. 
Just  believe  what  he  says.  The  job's  over.  No 
more  truth  need  be  sought. 

It's  a  comforting  thing  to  believe  cosmic  search 
nicely  settled. 

Thus  the  mold  will  be  hardened.  So  new 
truths,  when  they  come,  can  but  break  it.  Then 
men  will  feel  distraught  and  disillusioned,  and 
civilizations  will  fall. 

Thus  each  cycle  will  run.  So  long  as  men  in 
tertwine  falsehoods  with  every  seer's  visions, 
both  perish,  and  every  civilization  that  is  built 
on  them  must  perish  too. 


EIGHTEEN 
** 

If  men  can  ever  learn  to  accept  all  their  truths  as 
not  final,  and  if  they  can  ever  learn  to  build  on 
something  better  than  dogma,  they  may  not  be 
found  saying,  discouragedly,  every  once  in  so 
often,  that  every  civilization  carries  in  it  the 
seeds  of  decay.  It  will  carry  such  seeds  with  great 
certainty,  though,  when  they're  put  there,  by 
the  very  race,  too,  that  will  later  deplore  the  re 
sults.  Why  shouldn't  creeds  totter  when  they  are 
jerry-built  creeds? 

On  stars  where  creeds  come  late  in  the  life  of 
a  race;  where  they  spring  from  the  riper,  not 
cruder,  reactions  of  spirit;  where  they  grow  out 
of  nobly  developed  psychic  powers  that  have  put 
their  possessors  in  tune  with  cosmic  music;  and 
where  no  cheap  hallucinations  discredit  their 
truths;  they  perhaps  run  a  finer,  more  beautiful 
course  than  the  simians',  and  open  the  eyes  of 
the  soul  to  far  loftier  visions. 
-91- 


NINE  TEEN 


It  has  always  been  a  serious  matter  for  men  when 
a  civilization  decayed.  But  it  may  at  some  future 
day  prove  far  more  serious  still.  Our  hold  on 
the  planet  is  not  absolute.  Our  descendants  may 
lose  it. 

Germs  may  do  them  out  of  it.  A  chestnut  fun 
gus  springs  up,  defies  us,  and  kills  all  our  chest 
nuts.  The  boll  weevil  very  nearly  baffles  us.  The 
fly  seems  unconquerable.  Only  a  strong  civiliza 
tion,  when  such  foes  are  about,  can  preserve  us. 
And  our  present  efforts  to  cope  with  such  beings 
are  fumbling  and  slow. 

We  haven't  the  habit  of  candidly  facing  this 
danger.  We  read  our  biological  history  but  we 
don't  take  it  in.  We  blandly  assume  we  were  al 
ways  "intended"  to  rule,  and  that  no  other  out 
come  could  even  be  considered  by  Nature.  This 
is  one  of  the  remnants  of  ignorance  certain  re 
ligions  have  left:  but  it's  odd  that  men  who  don't 
-92- 


This  Simian  World 


believe  in  Easter  should  still  believe  this.  For  the 
facts  are  of  course  this  is  a  hard  and  precarious 
world,  where  every  mistake  and  infirmity  must 
be  paid  for  in  full. 

If  mankind  ever  is  swept  aside  as  a  failure  how 
ever,  what  a  brilliant  and  enterprising  failure  he 
at  least  will  have  been.  I  felt  this  with  a  kind  of 
warm  suddenness  only  today,  as  I  finished  these 
dreamings  and  drove  through  the  gates  of  the 
park.  I  had  been  shutting  my  modern  surround 
ings  out  of  my  thoughts,  so  completely,  and  liv 
ing  as  it  were  in  the  wild  world  of  ages  ago,  that 
when  I  let  myself  come  back  suddenly  to  the 
twentieth  century,  and  stare  at  the  park  and  the 
people,  the  change  was  tremendous.  All  around 
me  were  the  well-dressed  descendants  of  primi 
tive  animals,  whizzing  about  in  bright  motors, 
past  tall,  soaring  buildings.  \Vhat  gifted,  ener 
getic  achievers  they  suddenly  seemed! 

I  thought  of  a  photograph  I  had  once  seen,  of 
a  ship  being  torpedoed.  There  it  was,  the  huge, 
finely  made  structure,  awash  in  the  sea.  with  tiny 
black  spots  hanging  on  to  its  side— crew  and  pas- 

-93- 


This  Simian  World 


sengers.  The  great  ship,  even  while  sinking,  was 
so  mighty,  and  those  atoms  so  helpless.  Yet, 
it  was  those  tiny  beings  that  had  created  that 
ship.  They  had  planned  it  and  built  it  and 
guided  its  bulk  through  the  waves.  They  had  also 
invented  a  torpedo  that  could  rend  it  asunder. 

It  is  possible  that  our  race  may  be  an  accident, 
in  a  meaningless  universe,  living  its  brief  life 
uncared-for,  on  this  dark,  cooling  star:  but  even 
so— and  all  the  more— what  marvelous  creatures 
we  are!  What  fairy  story,  what  tale  from  the 
Arabian  Nights  of  the  jinns,  is  a  hundredth  part 
as  wonderful  as  this  true  fairy  story  of  simians! 
It  is  so  much  more  heartening,  too,  than  the  tales 
we  invent.  A  universe  capable  of  giving  birth  to 
many  such  accidents  is— blind  or  not— a  good 
world  to  live  in,  a  promising  universe. 

And  if  there  are  no  other  such  accidents,  if  we 
stand  alone,  if  all  the  uncountable  armies  of 
planets  are  empty,  or  peopled  by  animals  only, 
with  no  keys  to  thought,  then  we  have  done 
something  so  mighty,  what  may  it  not  lead  to! 
What  powers  may  wre  not  develop  before  the  Sun 
-94- 


This  Simian  World 


dies!  We  once  thought  we  lived  on  God's  foot 
stool:  it  may  be  a  throne. 

This  is  no  world  for  pessimists.  An  amoeba 
on  the  beach,  blind  and  helpless,  a  mere  bit  of 
pulp,— that  amoeba  has  grandsons  today  who 
read  Kant  and  play  symphonies.  Will  those 
grandsons  in  turn  have  descendants  who  will  sail 
through  the  void,  discover  the  foci  of  forces,  the 
means  to  control  them,  and  learn  how  to  mar 
shal  the  planets  and  grapple  with  space?  Would 
it  after  all  be  any  more  startling  than  our  rise 
from  the  slime? 

No  sensible  amoeba  would  have  ever  believed 
for  a  minute  that  any  of  his  most  remote  chil 
dren  would  build  and  run  dynamos.  Few  sensi 
ble  men  of  today  stop  to  feel,  in  their  hearts,  that 
we  live  in  the  very  same  world  where  that  mir 
acle  happened. 

This  world,  and  our  racial  adventure,  are 
magical  still. 


-95- 


TWENTY 


Yet  although  for  high-spirited  marchers  the 
march  is  sufficient,  there  still  is  that  other  way  of 
looking  at  it  that  we  dare  not  forget.  Our  adven 
ture  may  satisfy  us:  does  it  satisfy  Nature?  She  is 
letting  us  camp  for  awhile  here  among  the 
wrecked  graveyards  of  mightier  dynasties,  not 
one  of  which  met  her  tests.  Their  bones  are  the 
message  the  epochs  she  murdered  have  left  us: 
we  have  learned  to  decipher  their  sickening 
warning  at  last. 

Yes,  and  even  if  we  are  permitted  to  have  a 
long  reign,  and  are  not  laid  away  with  the  fail 
ures,  are  we  a  success? 

We  need  so  much  spiritual  insight,  and  we 
have  so  little.  Our  airships  may  some  day  float 
over  the  hills  of  Arcturus,  but  how  will  that  help 
us  if  we  cannot  find  the  soul  of  the  world?  Is  that 

-96- 


This  Simian  World 


soul  alive  and  loving?  or  cruel?  or  callous?  or 
dead? 

We  have  no  sure  vision.  Hopes,  guesses,  be 
liefs—that  is  all. 

There  are  sounds  we  are  deaf  to,  there  are 
strange  sights  invisible  to  us.  There  are  whole 
realms  of  splendor,  it  may  be,  of  which  we  are 
heedless;  and  which  we  are  as  blind  to  as  ants  to 
the  call  of  the  sea. 

Life  is  enormously  flexible— look  at  all  that 
we've  done  to  our  dogs,— but  we  carry  our  hairy 
past  with  us  wherever  we  go.  The  wise  St.  Ber 
nards  and  the  selfish  toy  lap-dogs  are  brothers, 
and  some  things  are  possible  for  them  and  others 
are  not.  So  with  us.  There  are  definite  limits  to 
simian  civilizations,  due  in  part  to  some  primi 
tive  traits  that  help  keep  us  alive,  and  in  part  to 
the  mere  fact  that  every  being  has  to  be  some 
thing,  and  when  one  is  a  simian  one  is  not  also 
everything  else.  Our  main-springs  are  fixed,  and 
our  principal  traits  are  deep-rooted.  We  cannot 
now  re-live  the  ages  whose  imprint  we  bear. 

We  have  but  to  look  back  on  our  past  to  have 

-97- 


This  Simian  World 


hope  in  our  future:  but— it  will  be  only  our  fu 
ture,  not  some  other  race's.  We  shall  win  our 
own  triumphs,  yet  know  that  they  would  have 
been  different,  had  we  cared  above  all  for  crea- 
tiveness,  beauty,  or  love. 

So  we  run  about,  busy  and  active,  marooned 
on  this  star,  always  violently  struggling,  yet  with 
no  clearly  seen  goal  before  us.  Men,  animals,  in 
sects—what  tribe  of  us  asks  any  object,  except  to 
keep  trying  to  satisfy  its  own  master  appetite?  If 
the  ants  were  earth's  lords  they  would  make  no 
more  use  of  their  lordship  than  to  learn  and  en 
joy  every  possible  method  of  toiling.  Cats  would 
spend  their  span  of  life,  say,  trying  new  kinds  of 
guile.  And  we,  who  crave  so  much  to  know,  crave 
so  little  but  knowing.  Some  of  us  wish  to  know 
Nature  most;  those  are  the  scientists.  Others,  the 
saints  and  philosophers,  wish  to  know  God.  Both 
are  alike  in  their  hearts,  yes,  in  spite  of  their 
quarrels.  Both  seek  to  assuage,  to  no  end,  the  old 
simian  thirst. 

If  we  wanted  to  be  Gods— but  ah,  can  we  grasp 
that  ambition? 


A   NOTE    ON    THE   TYPE    IN    WHICH 
THIS    BOOK    IS   SET 

The  text  of  this  book  was  set  on  the  linotype  in  Baskerville. 
The  punches  for  this  face  were  cut  under  the  supervision  of 
George  W.  Jones,  an  eminent  English  printer.  Linotype  Bos- 
kerville  is  a  facsimile  cutting  from  type  cast  from  the  original 
matrices  of  a  face  designed  by  John  Baskerville.  The  original 
face  was  the  forerunner  of  the  "modern"  group  of  type  faces. 
f  John  Baskerville  (7706-7 5),  of  Birmingham,  England,  a  writ 
ing-master,  with  a  special  renown  for  cutting  inscriptions  in 
stone,  began  experimenting  about  7750  with  punch-cutting  and 
making  typographical  material.  It  was  not  until  7757  that  he 
published  his  first  work,  a  Virgil  in  royal  quarto,  with  great- 
primer  letters.  This  was  followed  by  his  famous  editions  of 
Milton,  the  Bible,  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer,  and  several 
Latin  classic  authors.  His  types,  at  first  criticized  as  unneces 
sarily  slender,  delicate,  and  feminine,  in  time  were  recognized 
as  both  distinct  and  elegant,  and  both  his  types  and  his 
printing  were  greatly  admired.  Printers,  however,  preferred 
the  stronger  types  of  Caslon,  and  Baskerville  before  his 
death   repented   of  having  attempted   the   business   of 
printing.  For  four  years  after  his  death  his  widow  con 
tinued  to  conduct  his  business.  She  then  sold  all 
his  punches  and  matrices  to  the  Societe  Litteraire- 
typographique,  which  used  some  of  the  types 
for  the  sumptuous  Kehl  edition  of  Vol- 
—  taire's  works  in  seventy  volumes. — 

COMPOSED,    PRINTED   AND   BOUND   BY 
H.  WOLFF,  NEW  YORK. 


LOAN  DEPT. 


LD  21A-50m-3  '6'? 
(C7097S]0)476B 


*^y*^-'   ^^*^* 
BOKZOI 


